


v^km,j..:.s-xi^mm 












\rs^^'if>^r^^^^^, 






H^^^^^ 



:(^f^■^f^A 



I 






ii^^^p^? 






y:f^':^^^m?, 



./^r^^^W 



./^A©5P^^ 



i/^nnO^' 



^LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

i 



E^4o 






;£*■ " 



m^// c. -\^ I 






-'^rT^rT^-^ 



'^^ 



I UNITED STATES OP AMERICA.^ 



mji^-\-'i^' 









;ft«^^ 



^aaAA' 






>^^^ArO^AnA^^^r\, 



^M^ 



--' A'/*\'l 












^^^^x.sA;AR^^r^K^/^„;^, 









^'m^^ 






'2^'f\^^f^^mf\ 









■ioi^i^j 






^^/^,^^oi^O>KA 



■nKWAf 



iSraSSB 






!,"'-;:>/ A ^f./^'^U: 



O^^/^nV 









'^nAAA, 



Aaa'^ ■"*■ •^^■^" 



'^^"^^^«TO^ 



i^^A.^'^'" 






m^^^::!^ 



mm^mmmm, 



.- 'vv 'fr-'Mf 









mm 












,V,?^^^^^2^gS^AA0^ ' 



«#p^p^iwwte 



SSW'A*aAn'jA AAA 












/^aAA^ 






i 



^D\>/7e,\\, ^"tt^He.n, 



THE 



FIVE COTTON STATES 



NEW YORK; 



REMAEKS 



UPON THE 



SOCIAL AND ECONOMICAL ASPECTS 



SOUTHERN POLITICAL CRISIS. 



^ JANUARY, 1861. N;^^ 






'r 



A40 



THE 

FIVE COTTON STATES 

AND 

NEW YORK. 



THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES — BENEFITS 
OF A GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 

The Constitution of the United States has survived the 
wear and tear of three-quarters of a century. If it is now 
for the first time in serious danger, it is no small proof of 
its vitality and power. It has withstood the undermining 
processes of human folly : it has escaped from perils by 
factions fraught with villany ^nd regardless of conse- 
quences ; from perils by fraud, from perils by treason, and 
from perils by great and conflicting interests. The civil- 
ized world has been shaken to its foundations by changes 
and revolutions which have occurred since the birth of our 
government. Some of the most disastrous wars the world 
has ever witnessed have swept off millions upon millions 
of the human family. Mutual slaughter by civilized men 
has seldom, in the history of the world, accomplished 
# o-reater destruction in the same time. Republics and 

thrones have sprung up and flourished in full-grown vigor 
for a few years, and then disappeared in a night. Our 
government has thus far successfully overcome all obsta- 
cles to its progress, and put to shame every voice that 
threatened its existence. It was never expected to escape 
all encounter with the perils to which every human insti- 
tution is, soon or late, exposed. Human nature has, in 

(3) 



4 THE FIVE COTTON STATES 

the last four-score years, exhibited the same tendency to 
evil which stares upon us in every page of history; the 
same readiness to pull up that which was planted, and 
pull down that which was built ; the same promptness to 
seize the sword upon every occasion of quarrel ; the same 
grasping after our own interests; the same blindness 
to the interests of others. There has been no peru\i of 
the world in which the highest qualities of statesmanship 
were more required. We have had an encounter with one 
of the most powerful nations of the world, and came off 
creditably. "We invaded a neighboring nation, and sent 
on that errand officers whose military skill and bravery 
commanded the admiration of Europe; and soldiers direct 
from the avocations of civil life, whose courage and en- 
durance were worthy of the officers by whom they were 
led. "We have had controversies of more or less import- 
ance with every power of Europe. T^irough all this we 
have risen to the rank of one of the great powers of the 
world. From thirteen States, with three millions, we 
have grown to thirty-three States, with upwards of thirty 
millions of inhabitants. '^Our progress in industry and 
wealth is quite as remarkable as in dominion, and is, in 
fact, admitted to have no parallel. 

It is safe to assume that this extraordinary advance in 
dominion, population, and wealth could never have been 
made, but under the favoring circumstances of a uniform 
policy, and continuous peace among the States : freedom 
from war, and its" devastations, could, however, only have 
been secured by means such as the cohesive power of the 
Constitution and laws of the United States. But whilst 
peace and uninterrupted industry have thus turned to good 
account the unequalled natural advantages of our match- 
less country, it may be very true, indeed it could not be 
otherwise, than that any policy or system of legislation 
uniform for such a wide extent of territory, for so great a 
variety of interests, institutions and people, must in some 
instances work injury or annoyance to a portion of the 



A N D N E W Y R K . 5 

people. Such has been the case in our confederacy. Some 
of the subjects upon which diversities of opinion have 
arisen are Direct Taxation, Internal Improvements, Sla- 
very, Free Trade, Protection to Domestic Industry, and 
Protection to Foreign Commerce. 

If such topics as these cannot, in this country, be dis- 
cussed without limitation, and if decisions cannot be 
reached which should command the assent of all, the hope 
of maintaining free governments might as well be given 
up at once, for questions as important and serious must be 
met in every country ; in point of fact, they have been 
met and discussed for eighty years, with the excitement 
of discussion not unfrequently at the highest pitch to which 
the interest felt in such subjects could carry it. We have 
hitherto passed through these scenes safely, and fully vin- 
dicated our capacity for self-government. So far as the 
questions involved are concerned, we can do so again. 
Although Slavery is one of these delicate topics, and in- 
volves questions the most difficult of solution, we do not 
hesitate to say that there is patriotism, forbearance, intel- 
ligence, and discrimination enough to meet and settle, 
wisely and well, every question to which that subject can 
give rise. 

We do not mean to make light of this matter : far from 
it. It is one of the most momentous and interestino^ which 
can engage the minds and hearts of the people of this or 
any country ; we only intend to say that it is susceptible 
of adjustment under our constitution in such manner, that 
States in which Slavery exists, and those in which it does 
not, can remain peaceably and honorably together under 
the same general government. It may be quite impossi- 
ble to decide which of these two classes of States has 
most to answer for in the way of offences against the 
other, or to say whose bill of grievances as against the 
other is the heaviest. Each heart most feels its own bit- 
terness, and each of these parties must be allowed to fill 
up and utter its own bill of complaint. They can never 



6 ♦^ THE FIVE COTTON STATES 

be brought to think alike ; but they can, if they please, 
decide what is to be done, and draw a line beyond which 
neither must go. The motives and interests which have 
thus far held the States together are strong enough to hold 
them together still, so far as Slavery is concerned. Wliat 
has already occurred, exaggerated hj part}* spirit, should 
not discourage prolonged efforts to heal present difficul- 
ties. Slavery, as protected by the Constitution of the 
United States, has more friends in the Northern States 
than it has in all the world beside — friends who would 
march by the hundred thousand for its protection and de- 
fence as it exists under the Constitution. 

GRIEVANCES — QUESTIONS OF THE POLITICAL CRISIS. 

The real questions which now agitate the Southern 
States, and which have shaken the fidelity and patriotism 
of so many leading citizens of those States, are, — Where 
is the political power of the country to be lodged ? Who 
is to wield its patronage ? and. Where is its wealth to be 
concentrated? These are the questions which give inten- 
sity to the agitation, — to the words and actions of promi- 
ment men in the South. It is no new thing, if the unex- 
pressed motives in a political movement are more powerful 
than those which are avowed. The under-current, which 
sweeps backward from the shore, though unseen, has often 
more power than the breakers which come thundering 
over the surface with so much splash and display. It does 
not appear to us a subject of legitimate complaint, that 
Southern politicians enter upon such inquiries as those 
just indicated. We do not think they need be kept in 
the background. If our general government is destined 
for a duration of ages, it must be able to encounter all the 
questions which private and public interests, which ambi- 
tion, bad passions and the complications of social and 
political life, may offer. The very questions which between 
isolated States can only be settled by arms, must be met 



AND NEW YORK. ^ 7 

and settled between our States by resort to the intellectual 
and moral qualities of statesmanship. K our government 
is worth preserving for one reason more than another, it 
is that it may save the States from the calamity of war ; 
and we cannot doubt that it has been efficient in Saving 
us from many bloody and ruinous contests, in which the 
conflicting interests of the last eighty years would have 
precipitated us. One war of five years would destroy the 
fruits of tv\^enty-five years' industry. 

We propose to offer some remarks upon certain of the 
topics above suggested for the consideration of those whose 
discontent is so rapidly ripening into revolution. It may 
be assumed, we think, that no thought of secession would 
have been entertained but under motives of the strongest 
kind : the oppression which makes even the wise man 
mad, could alone have driven the men of South Carolina 
to the desperate measure of forsaking the constitution of 
the United States. What these powerful motives are may 
be gathered with considerable accuracy from the speeches, 
writings, and conversation of the leading politicians of that 
State. In her colonial days and at the time of the adop- 
tion of the Constitution of the United States, South Caro- 
lina stood in the front rank in point of wealth, education, 
and aristocratic style of living; she could have claimed 
high distinction in many other respects, in comparison 
with her sister colonies and States. The City of Charleston 
enjoyed a like distinction among the cities of North Ame- 
rica, its inhabitants being in high repute for their intelli- 
gence, refinement, and liberal style of living. Although 
the people still preserve their high character individually, 
their State and city have fallen far behind many others in 
the race of population, wealth, and power. The City of 
Philadelphia has a population nearly equal to the whole 
State of South Carolina. The cities of New York and 
Brooklyn have together a population more than double 
that State. These are 'specimens of unfavorable compari- 
sons suggested to the people of that State when they come 



8 THE FIVE COTTON STATES 

to the Fortli. Georgia and North Carolina have both 
outstripped the neighbor which lies between them ; and 
South Carolina has come to the conclusion that she_ is 
robbed by New York of that trade and wealth to which 
her favorable position entitles her. 

That there is enough in this to arouse the attention of 
South Carolinians — to induce an inquiry into causes and 
a search for remedies, is quite true ; but surely not enough, 
when added to all the grievances of that State in reference 
to Slavery, to justify a rush from the Union. Wise men 
count the cost of great undertakings; prudent men look 
before they leap. The men of South Carolina do neither: 
they bolt from the Union and their allegiance with as much 
precipitation as from a house in flames. They put in im- 
minent peril wives, children, property. Slavery itself, and 
the very constitution of the society in which they live, and 
which they profess to prize far above the Union: theydasK 
headlong into perplexities and inconsistencies of law and 
administration, from which there is no retiring with dig- 
nity, and no advancing but with treason and dishonor. 
They have attained a position in which, on one hand, they 
have the ruin of industry and commerce, and on the other, 
civil war and ultimate humiliation. This is the work of 
insane passion. If secessionis possible, it is so only by a 
tribunal constituted like that which formed the Union — 
by a convention capable of amending the constitution, or 
forming a new one. Firmness, deliberation, and wisdom 
might have carried such a measure. In the Union, South 
Carolina would be ever safe from border wars and their 
attendant evils, so specially dangerous to her: out of 
it, she is launched upon the sea of national hostilities, 
where the storms of war are inevitable. The effort to 
fight her battles in the Union has not been persevered m 
as the interests involved demanded. It is a lack of moral 
courage — it is mental cowardice to shrink from a contest 
for which our national institutions' provide every needful 
arena. 



AND NEW YORK. 



THE COMMERCIAL POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES, AND 
SOUTHERN INTERESTS. 

It is urged, we know and believed, that the commercial, 
policy of the United States is injurious to Southern inter- 
ests—so injurious as not to be endurable, and as far more 
than to counterbalance all the advantages of the Union. 
This has been long and earnestly asserted, and certainly 
deserves the most careful inquiry. We have for more 
than twenty-five years been devoted to the study of the 
industrial and commercial system of the United States, 
yet we could never see on what foundation this conclusion 
rested. We have often admired the intellect and the 
ingenuity brought to its support. The facts by which 
such positions can be demonstrated are not accessible in 
any system of commercial statistics within our reach, and 
the attempts at demonstration seem to omit elements 
indispensable to sound conclusions. Let us look at it a 
little, as connected with the production of Cotton, which 
is the item of Southern industry supposed to suffer most 
from this injurious policy. 

The mode of disposing of their cotton is that which the 
planters themselves have adopted, uncontrolled by any 
national legislation. The expense consists, in transporta- 
tion to the port whence it is shipped to Europe or to a 
Northern destination at home, the charges of shipping, 
freight to Europe, commissions on advances, and commis- 
sions on sales. Exchange is sometimes a profit, and some- 
times a loss. The ports whence the cotton is shipped for 
a foreign market are, Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, and 
'New Orleans — the latter receiving about one-half of the 
whole quantity. The management of the cotton at these 
cities is wholly under the control of the planters who have 
not previously sold their cotton, and their factors or agents, 
and is the best no doubt which their experience and com- 
mercial skill can devise. The planter either sells his 



20 THE FIVE COTTON STATES 

cotton at once, and realizes the amount in the way which 
best suits him : he ships it northward, coastwise, and to 
Europe on his own account; or, having received ad- 
vances on account, it is shipped in the name of the party 
who has made advances. For the amount shipped coast- 
wise domestic bills are drawn, and for the most part sold 
or discounted in the cities where the cotton is first re- 
ceived. Against the amount shipped to Europe foreign 
bills are drawn, and sold wherever the best rate can be 
obtained for them, which is almost always at New York, 
because that is the great market of foreign exchange for 
the United States. It is there that the importers of foreign 
goods are concentrated, and thence their remittances are 
made. There the buyers of exchange congregate, and 
there, of course, the best price can be obtained ; and that 
is the chief reason why the planter and his agents send 
their foreign bills to New York. Bills can be sold in that 
city when there is no demand elsewhere. A very large 
proportion of the money advanced upon cotton, at all the 
places of delivery, comes from New York ; and bills drawn 
upon cotton are transmitted thither, to reimburse advances. 
Besides this, the merchants of the whole cotton region 
find it their advantage, as well as convenience, to pay for 
all their purchases at the North and their purchases abroad 
through New York : it is, therefore, a matter not only of 
convenience, but economy, to keep a large deposit in that 
city, where it is more available for the uses to which it is 
to be applied, than if in their own banks. 

This vast business is carried on by the producers of cot- 
ton and their agents precisely in the way which experience 
teaches them to be most for their advantage. They are 
untrammelled by any Northern control but that which 
is of their own choice. These large transactions have 
fallen into the Tery channels, which the unrestrained 
action of those concerned have turned them ; and this is 
in complete accordance with that system of political 
economy which is so earnestly and ably advocated by the 



AND NEW YORK 



11 



orators and writers of Charleston. They maintain that 
trade should he entirely free, because men understand 
their own interests best, and should not be disturbed by 
the hand of government in their management. So far 
their theory and their mode of business run together, and 
the Free Trade principle is perfectly exemplified. 

FOREIGN EXCHANGE. 

But it is alleged that the foreign exchange of the South 
being all eifected at New York, leaves a great profit there, 
which is so much abstracted from the Southern purse. 
There is no doubt that the business of Southern Exchange, 
that is, the converting bills drawn upon foreign countries 
for the value of cotton into money at home, is mainly 
effected at New York, for the simple reason that those who 
are concerned find it to their advantage, both in point of 
economy and convenience. The aggregate of profit thus 
made by New York is less than one per cent, on the 
amount of Southern bills purchased. It could not be done 
so satisfactorily to the parties interested, elsewhere in the 
United States, and it could not be done there at so low a 
rate, but for its concentration. If one hundred millions 
of dollars of Southern bills drawn on cotton are sold there 
annually, and that is probably the outside figure, it may 
leave, at the utmost, seven hundred and fifty thousand 
dollars of profit to the banks and dealers in exchange. K 
this business were withdrawn to the South from New 
York, it would be divided between Mobile, Savannah, 
Charleston, and New Orleans — one-half going to the latter 
city, and the remainder to the others, in proportion to 
their share of the business. In point of fact, these cities 
could not effect so large an amount of exchange, for 
they have neither the means nor the purchasers. It is 
well known that the parties who advance on cotton reim- 
burse themselves through New York, or capital from there 
is employed directly in Southern ports to make such ad- 



12 THE FIVECOTTON STATES 

yauces. If New York capital should be suddenly diverted 
from this channel of employment, it would have disas- 
trous effects upon the interests of the Cotton States. Even 
if such a change were eifected, it could not benefit the 
planter, who would have to pay others for the same ser- 
vice, and at a higher rate. Some banks and individuals 
in the Southern cities might profit ; but as they could not 
for a long time extend the same facilities in the way of 
advances, the planters would sufier to an extent which 
could not be compensated by the increased profits of the 
bankers. This business of the exchange consequent upon 
the export of cotton, has assumed its present shape under 
the hands of those most interested in it ; and it cannot be 
changed suddenly without great loss, sufiering, and incon- 
venience to those who are concerned. 



WHO PAYS THE DUTIES. 

The grievance, however, which is most insisted upon 
by writers and speakers of the Cotton States is, that the 
heavy duties imposed by the United States bear with un- 
due severity upon them ; many do not hesitate to assert 
that they pay all, or nearly all, the revenue of our govern- 
ment derived from duties on foreign goods. That this is 
believed, is evinced by the reiteration of the statement. 
It is sometimes supported by the argument, that as the 
return for Southern cotton is wholly in foreign commodi- 
ties, the duty imposed upon them is virtually a tax upon 
the Southern cotton. This position is specious enough to 
mislead those who do not trouble themselves to think 
or inquire. Those who do, easily detect the fallacy. 
The consumer of imported goods must pay not only the 
foreign cost, but the duties and all intervening profits 
and charges ; the producei's of cotton pay duties, under 
our system, only upon such goods as they consume. They 
either sell their cotton at home, or send it to a foreign 
market ; and in either case they get the best price they 



ANDNEWYORK. 13 

•can, and are paid in cash, or in such currency or credits 
as suits the purposes of the sellers and their agents. The 
funds thus obtained are managed and applied by the sellers 
of the cotton according to the exigencies of their business 
— the main part going, by an inexorable law of industry 
and trade, to defray the expenses of producing cotton and 
transporting it to the place of sale. The planters of cot- 
ton are, in this respect, situated as all other producers — 
they pay duties only according to their consumption of 
foreign goods, and are governed in their purchases by the 
price and quality, and their individual interests in the 
matter. 

Those who go deeper into the subject do not rest their 
complaint upon this fallacy, but insist that all the goods 
consumed by them are affected by the heavy duties im- 
posed — the domestic as well as the imported. It is 
alleged that the duties on foreign goods keep the prices 
of domestic products at the same level, thereby subjecting 
the cotton planter, who produces an article marketable 
abroad, to the necessity of paying increased rates for all 
his supplies. This opens a complicated subject, upon 
which, though much has been said and written, opinions 
are yet very diverse. The space to which we design to 
confine these remarks is not sufficient for such a topic ; 
we pass it now, for the purpose of stating some facts which 
will enable us to present it in various points of view. 



THE FIVE COTTON STATES. 

It would be interesting, doubtless, to know whether 
an equal population, employing slave labor, paid more or 
less of the duties upon imported goods than that which 
does not employ it. By analyzing the entire expenditure 
of the five Cotton States of South Carolina, Georgia, 
Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi, we may ascertain, if 
not with certainty, yet with a fair approximation, what 



14 - THE FIVE COTTON STATES 

proportion of their income goes to the support of the • 
government. 

The States just named had, by the census of 1850, a 
white population of 1,565,554, which, estimating at the 
rate of increase between 1840 and 1850, has increased at 
the present time to 2,060,078. The slave population, esti- 
mating at the rate between 1840 and 1850, has swelled its 
numbers from 1,458,745, in 1850, to 2,187,322, in 1860, 
making the population of these five States, at the present 
time, 4,247,410. 

It is frequently stated that the people of the Cotton 
States do not raise their own food. It is well known that 
the people of the five States to which we now refer are 
large purchasers of flour, pork, and other articles of food, 
the produce of other States ; they are also sellers of food 
for man and beast. It may be^ their sales in this par- 
ticular are equivalent to their purchases. If not, they 
certainly transgress every sound principle of industrial 
economy, as the occupiers of such a soil in such a climate ; 
and are inexcusable, if they pay the expense of transporting 
from elsewhere such articles of domestic provisions as they 
consume. We shall assume, for our purpose, that they 
do produce food for their own consumption, or, at least, 
that what they import is paid for by what they export. 
This leaves their great crop of cotton, and their manufac- 
tures, and the products of the mechanic arts, free of all 
incumbrance for food to meet other needful expenditure, 
and for accumulation as capital. 

The cotton crop of these five States was, according to 
the census of 1850, eighty per cent, of the whole product 
of the United States, and if that proportion is maintained, 
may be stated at three millions two hundred thousand 
bales, yielding, at forty dollars per bale, the vast sum of 
$128,000,000. 



AND NEW YORK. 



15 



THEIR EXPENDITURES — COST OF PRODUCTION — DUTIES. 

"We next inquire to what purposes the five great Cotton 
States apply their annual income. Ha^dng assumed that 
the same soil which produced the cotton has produced the 
food, the proceeds of their cotton and manufactures are 
applicable to other necessities of social life and Southern 
industry. By the census of 1850, the agricultural imple- 
ments and machinery connected with planting in these 
States were stated to be of the value of ^21,577,889. As 
the cotton crop has increased from two millions and a half 
to four millions in 1860, this value is now P0,000,000. 
This property is subject to constant deterioration by wear; 
its repair is a necessity constantly recurring, and, to a 
large extent, it is yearly replaced by improved implements, 
involving an expenditure of not less than fifteen per cent, 
on the entire value of this investment. 

The annual expenditure for clothing the negroes, for 
overseeing, for medical attendance, and for other occa- 
sional but unavoidable expenses pertaining to the well- 
being of slaves, consumes a vast sum, which fifty millions 
will scarcely cover. 

The expenses of packing cotton,, transportation to port 
of shipment, shipping charges, commissions, foreign freight, 
interest, discount, and exchanges, are a heavy charge upon 
its production. 

There are the further burdens of interest on mortgages 
of real estate, and payments on negroes purchased*; 

* Estimating the number of negroes purchased by Alabama, Flo- 
rida, Georgia, and Mississippi, at the rate by which the slaves in 
those States increased beyond the rate of increase of the whole slave 
population, we find they purchased, between 1840 and 1850, slaves 
to the number of 159,743, or 15,974 yearly; which, at the rate of 
^1000 each, drew every year from those States $15,974,000. South 
Carolina sold slaves in those ten years to the amount of $39,167,000. 



16 THE FIVE COTTON STATES 

which, together, must yearly absorb a large portion of the 
planter's income. 

Besides this, it must be noted, that every producer of 
cotton has a large capital invested in land and negroes. 
His business should keep this capital unimpaired, besides 
furnishing an income sufficient for the maintenance of 
his family and that generous expenditure in which planters 
are accustomed to indulge — this must be left to the 
estimate of those who are considering the subject. The 
natural increase of the slaves is only three per cent, per 
annum. 

A careful examination warrants us in stating the cost 
of making cotton and delivering it at the port of shipment, 
or in the markets of the United States, at not less, on the 
average of all places and soils in the five Cotton States, 
than $24 per bale. The cost of placing 3,200,000 bales 
in the ports of the South or markets of the North is not 
less than $76,800,000. This sum taken from $128,000,000, 
the price supposed to be realized, leaves for the producers 
a surplus of $51,200,000. If we take from this surplus 
the money used by the planters for purposes where money 
is indispensable — as, for taxes, payment of interest, pur- 
chase of negroes, — say one-half the surplus, or $25,600,000, 
which is only a small fraction over $12 for each white 
person, this would leave the same amount for the purchase 
of foreign goods and for the purchase of productions of 
Northern States. 

This exhibit forbids the idea that the people of the five 
States pay as much or more than their proper proportion 
of the duties upon foreign goods. That proportion is two 
dollars for each head ; for our whole revenue by customs 
is about $60,000,000, for thirty millions of people. If the 
sum above specified as applicable to the purchase of Ame- 
rican and foreign goods were all expended for the latter, 
it would make only one dollar per head for average duties. 
But the supposition is not allowable. These people, it is 
true, pay duties on so much cotton bagging and negro 



ANDNEWYORK. 17 

clothing as they import; but, according to the annual 
Treasury Eeports on Commerce, that is a small amount. 
The value of cotton bagging imported is stated to have 
been |8,296 in the fiscal year ending July, 1858, and 
$14,067 the year previous. These Reports furnish no 
indications of heavy importations of articles suitable for 
negro clothing. There is no evidence, that we can find, 
showing that the planters pay as much as ten cents per 
head of the whole population for duty on cotton bagging 
and negro cloths, cotton or woollen. The supposition 
above made is not allowable, because it is well known 
that these Southern people are large purchasers of i^orthern 
productions. Some writers estimate this importation from 
the North as high as $150,000,000 *; at which rate the pro- 
portion of the five States would be $75,000,000. Deduct- 
ing from this $20,000,000 (an amount already included in 
the cost of making cotton), expended in agricultural im- 
plements, machinery, &c., and we have $55,000,000 ; an 
amount which is too large to be purchased from the North, 
but upon prolonged credits, to go on accumulating as a 
debt, until discharged in the course of years by the com- 
bined contingencies of large crops and high prices. 

From the climate occupied by the cotton planters, and 
their habit of residing in the country, and dressing in 
a plain and inexpensive manner whilst at home, it is 
believed they consume foreign goods, paying high duties, 
in great moderation. If the same people were resi- 
dents of cities, their consumption of such goods would 
probably be three times greater. A simple inspection 
of the list of articles usually imported demonstrates 
that they are not wanted at the South in the laro-e 
quantities required at the North, such as wool, woollen 
goods, iron and steel, furs, and various raw materials 
of manufactures. The Southern people are then exempt, 



* Southern Wealth and Northern Profits. By T. P. Kettell. 
New York, 1860. 
2 



18 THE FIVE COTTON STATES 

by their habits of life, by the nature of their industry, 
and by the fact of half their whole population being 
slaves, from their full proportion of the burden of the 
customs. That is their advantage, and not their misfor- 
tune, if, as they allege, their system of industiy is the 
best. 

"We cannot decide what proportion of the sui-plus of 
$25,600,000 above mentioned is expended in foreign, and 
what in ISTorthern domestic goods ; but we have no doubt 
that much the largest share goes for Northern commodi- 
ties, and therefore assign $15,600,000 to the latter, and 
$10,000,000 to the former. The average duty on the latter 
is eighteen per cent., and the whole duty paid $1,800,000 
— less than fifty cents a head of the whole population. 

From all the evidence and statistics to which we have 
access, we are at a loss to detect any proof that the popu- 
lation of the five Cotton States pay in duties directly, one 
dollar for each person. It is possible they make up the 
amount of two dollars each by increased prices on domes- 
tic commodities. But as the whole population of the 
United States pay two dollars direct duties on the average, 
they must of course pay their portion of the indirect duties. 
There does not then appear to be any substantial ground 
of complaint in this respect. 

ARE GREAT QUESTIONS TO BE SOLVED BY INTELLECT 
OR BY FORCE OF ARMS? 

It is the subject of frequent and strong complaint, on 
the part of the South, that the present course of business 
in the United Stiites is extremely unfavorable, if not un- 
just, to the South, especially to the five States of South 
Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. It 
is assumed, by those who urge this grievance, that New 
York absorbs a very large and undue share of the trade 
which properly belongs to Southern cities and Southern 
merchants. This presents an important inquiry, which 



ANDNEWYORK. 19 

well deserves the study of Southern and Northern states- 
men and political economists. We have at various times, 
for more than thirty years, given earnest attention to it, 
and have endeavored to comprehend the questions of 
social economy which were rising between States and 
people JSTorth, and States and people South, in our rapidly 
and widely-extending country. In a territory so large, 
embracing climates and productions so varied, it could not 
be otherwise than that questions would arise, new, com 
plicated, and presenting special difficulties, from the mag- 
nitude of the interests involved, and the novelty of the 
institutions under which they were to be settled. Ques- 
tions which, in the past history of the world, were adjusted 
by long and devious efforts of diplomacy, backed by the 
plain and easily understood arguments of hundreds of 
thousands of men in arms, and not unfrequently by the 
actual arbitrament of battles, are among us for the first 
time on such a scale, to be settled by legislators, and 
judges, and elective magistrates. At this moment there 
is a political tempest raging in the United States — a 
mighty rush of excited feelings and clashing opinions, 
roused by real events, and bearing on subjects of real im- 
portance. Such feelings and opinions, lashed into mad- 
ness by the unscrupulous doings and statements of political 
partizans, would have thrust us into an embittered war 
ere now under any other institutions. They have kept us 
thus far from bloodshed; they will conduct us through 
this national crisis, if we, as a people, prove ourselves 
worthy of our political privileges and experience. 

As a whole people, we must learn to realize our new 
and exalted position — we must rise intellectually to appre- 
ciate new problems and aspects of statesmanship, legisla- 
tion, and social economy. As we increase in wealth, 
power, and population, our wisdom should increase. 
Above all, we must increase in patience, forbearance, and 
in that knowledge of human nature which will teach us 
that no question can arise among us, as a people or as 



20 THE FIVE COTTON STATES 

States, which cannot be more wisely settled, under our 
institutions, than by any possible method outside of them. 
"We must not forget that the teachings of the old world, 
where standing armies are in the background of all politi- 
cal and economical agitations and disputes, do not, and 
should not apply here. It is very possible we may not 
agree, but we should be able to understand each other, 
and find the true point of mutual concession and adjust- 
ment ; and no effort should be regarded as too great or 
onerous, and no time too long, where the alternative was 
disunion and civil war. 

Among the diiOicult questions which must be met are 
those which arise from different industrial and social sys- 
tems existing in States far apart. Let it then be our effort 
to settle these not for ourselves only, but for all the world. 
Elsewhere they are settled by armies and navies — let us 
be the first to settle them by the weapons of intellect, 
knowledge, and social skill. In this mode of adjustment 
let us show, in time to come, as we might have shown in 
times past, that we have no superiors in the world ; let us 
exemplify that this mode of adjustment demands the 
highest grade of mind, the largest knowledge of the world, 
and the heroism of moral courage. 

COMMERCE: WHAT IS IT? * 

Before entering on the subject of the Southern com- 
plaint, that the North has unduly absorbed the trade and 
business of the South, we wish to make a remark or two 
on the subject of commerce, as to which there is a fallacy 
resting in many minds, which it is worth while to try to 
remove. When two persons, with each a commodity in 
hand, give one for the other, that is an act of commerce ; 
and although the exchange may be for the advantage of 
both, no addition has been made to the wealth of the com- 
munity in which they live. This is just as true of two 
nations as of two individuals. The industry which in- 
creases the whole quantity of commodities is that which 



A N D N E W Y E. K . 21 

creates wealth. Commerce does not add to the stock of 
commodities — it distributes the stock which exists. When 
two persons exchange as we have just supposed, there is 
no expense attending the transaction, and therefore no tax 
upon the exchange. But to cany on commerce in the 
mode needful for the accommodation of civilized commu- 
nities, great expense is incurred. Commerce collects, 
transports, stores, assorts, distributes, and sells wholesale 
and retail ; and for these purposes it requires merchants, 
warehouses, stores, ships, canals, railways, money, and 
innumerable other agencies, all of which are an expense 
to productive industr3^ Commerce never makes a bale 
of cotton, a yard of cloth, or a pound of iron. Undoubt- 
edly, it stimulates and promotes production, because pro- 
duction could not go on without distribution, and because 
the capital accumulated becomes a powerful assistant to 
industry. But the whole of the agencies of commerce 
are, nevertheless, an expense and a tax upon productive 
labor. "We should endeavor, by all proper agencies, to 
increase production ; but the effort should be as constant 
to dispense with such agencies of commerce as may be no 
longer required for the special purposes of distribution. 

There is no doubt that these distributing agents, the 
merchants, from their intermediate position between the 
maker and the consumer, between the seller and the buyer, 
obtain an immense advantage by the knowledge they 
acquire of the position and necessities of all classes of 
society, which they turn to such profitable account, that, 
from being agents of industry, they become masters and 
merchant princes — from intermediates they become prin- 
cipals. They absorb a portion of the profits which in 
strictness belongs to the producers, and not the distribu- 
tors of wealth. Where industry is left to the free mani- 
pulation of merchants, and no special care is taken of the 
producers, that result is inevitable. 



22 THE FIVE COTTON STATES 



THE FIVE COTTON STATES AND THEIR PRODUCTIONS. 

The five States mentioned produce 3,200,000 bales of 
cotton, worth say $128,000,000 ; but the expense of the 
commercial agencies through which this cotton passes 
amounts, including transportation, freights, commissions, 
&c., to five dollars per bale. This is a heavy tax, now 
paid by cotton planters to commerce. It has always been 
and is now a legitimate inquiry, whether this business can 
be done at less expense to the producer of cotton. The 
business has found its present channels and taken its 
present shape by the free choice of those concerned in it. 
So far as it has taken form in this country, it is the off- 
spring of the most perfect free trade in the world. The 
benefits of this trade, that is, the enjoyment of the 
$16,000,000 it yields, now^ belongs mainly to Charleston, 
Savannah, Mobile, New^ Orleans, New York, and Liver- 
pool ; but many other interests, such as railways, canals, 
ships, and steamers, partake largely. Now, if this busi- 
ness, so far as this country is concerned, could be concen- 
trated at Charleston, Savannah, or Mobile, it might con- 
siderably promote the growth of those cities ; but would 
the business be done at any less cost than at present? 
Would it benefit the producer, or strengthen his hands ? 
Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, and New Orleans, are inte- 
rested to draw from Ne^y York as many of the agencies 
and profits as they can ; but it does not so much concern 
the individuals who furnish the cotton which is the object 
of this trade. Those cities might, in a time of excitement, 
think it worth while to go out of the Union for the sake 
of the profit on the cotton trade ; but the planters who 
produce the cotton have no interest in following them, 
as they can never have a government which will prove 
less expensive to them than that of the United States. 

The idea now pretty extensively entertained in the 
South, that New York is fattening on Southern trade and 



ANDNEWYORK. 23 

business, is an utter delusion : !N"ew York is not piling up 
"Northern profits on Southern wealth." It is a miscon- 
ception, which no unprejudiced man can entertain, if he 
will take the trouble to examine. Last year the outward 
shipments of cotton were, 

From New York 156,911 bales. 

" Charleston 326,500 " 

" Savannah 259,179 " 

" Mobile 478,606 " 

" New Orleans 1,658,317 " 

It is not, then, by the export trade in cotton that New 
York builds those avenues of princely mansions, which so 
much excite the notice of King Cotton's subjects in 
Charleston. 

NEW YORK BUSINESS IN COTTON COMPARED WITH THE 
WHOLE BUSINESS OF THAT CITY. 

Let us ascertain now, how much New York actually 
realizes by the cotton business. The cotton merchants in 
the Southern cities make advances on cotton, and probably 
charge two and a half per cent, on the value of the quan- 
tity exported. Last year this amounted to $131,000,000, 
of which they may have allowed 

New York one and a quarter per cent $1,637,500 

Add for exchange on the whole, a half per cent 655,000 

Add ^5 per bale on 156,911 bales shipped from N. Y.... 784,555 
Let us suppose that New York makes ten per cent, on 
$131,000,000 worth of merchandise purchased with 
the proceeds of this export of cotton 13 100 000 

$16,177,055 

This last item, $13,100,000, is more than double what 
it should be, if the author of "Southern Wealth and 
Northern Profits" approximates the truth in estimating 
the South to be the purchaser of $150,000,000 of Northern 



24 THE FIVE COTTON STATES 

products yearly. We do uot believe that the profits of 
E"ew York, in all the transactions relating to raw cotton, 
exceed nine millions yearly; but we leave it as above. 
The contrast of the larger sum with the actual daily trans- 
actions of !N"ew York, the amounts of which are accurately 
known, will be strong enough. 

The Banks of New York settle their claims against 
each other every day. These claims arise chiefly on notes 
discounted by them, or deposited with them for collection, 
and paid by checks on other banks than the one holding 
them. They include also the exchange of bank notes. 
These settlements amounted, in 

1857, to a daily average of. $26,968,371. 

1858, " " " 15,393,735. 

1859, " " " 20,867,333. 

1860, " " " about 25,000,000. 

The balances on these settlements, paid in specie, 
amounted to over one million of dollars daily. These 
acyustments do not include the payments made in the 
several banks by checks drawn on them by their own de- 
positors, which may amount to $5,000,000 more, and they 
do not include the immense payments going on daily in 
New York out of bank. The entire value of the whole 
cotton crop of the United States rated at four millions of 
bales, and, at forty dollars a bale, worth $160,000,000, 
would equal only six or eight days' payments at the Clear- 
ing House of ISTew York, and probably not six days' pay- 
ments of the whole city. 

It is often urged that New York enjoys an immense 
advantage in the use of Southern capital deposited in her 
banks. New York is, doubtless, the financial capital of 
the United States, and, as such, is the bank of the bankers 
of the whole country, who find it for their benefit to keep 
large deposits in that city. There is no doubt that the 
South derives great advantage from this commercial prac- 
tice, and greater benefit from such amount of her funds 



ANDNEWYORK. 25 

as are deposited tlicre, than if they were scattered in dif- 
ferent banks at home. The concentration of money in 
'New York furnishes to the South a far greater sum, at 
many times in the year, than the South ever has on de- 
posit at one time. The deposit of Southern funds in ISTew 
York is a purely financial expedient for the benefit of 
those who make the deposit. London and Paris are, 
financially, to their respective countries, what New York 
is to the United States. 

"We might make comparisons with the daily payments 
of Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, to show how im- 
mensely the business transactions of each exceed what the 
whole amount of the cotton crop would make them, if 
they were dependent on that alone. But we think it will 
be more instructive to compare the five Cotton States of 
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Caro- 
lina, with the eight States around New York, containing 
a little more than half the number of square miles, for the 
purpose of showing what is, much more than cotton, the 
real basis of the growth and wealth of that magnificent 
city. These five States cover 244,531 square miles, and 
contain a population of 4,247,410 inhabitants, of whom 
2,060,078 are white. Their production of cotton is esti- 
mated at eighty per cent, of the whole crop, stated as 
above at 3,200,000 bales, worth $128,000,000— which sum, 
apportioned among the whole population, gives $30 for 
each ; if among the white population, it gives $82 to each 
person. "We have conceded what many deny, that the 
food consumed by this whole population is produced by 
themselves, though its money value is far below the aver- 
age cost of food in the Middle and Northern States. Food 
is, to a very large extent, produced by the planters, and 
consumed on the spot, and enters but to a limited extent 
the channels of trade. This is economy to the planter, 
and, in fact, indicates his true policy. At the valuation 
put, in the South, on the food they consume, it would not 
probably amount to $30 each ; but as it would cost $50 



26 THE FIVE COTTON STATES 

if purchased as ISTorthern people purclaase their food, we 
put the production of these five States at $50 per head for 
their food, making $212,370,500. Of this large produc- 
tion, not more than ten per cent., or twenty millions, pays 
a dollar of profit to the trader or transporter. Not less 
than $20,000,000 per annum are thus saved. It is true, 
the sum thus saved would go far to sustain a middle class 
of traders and mechanics sufiicient to double the popula- 
tions of the cities and towns of these States; but Southern 
people difi'er upon the point whether such a population 
would be an advantage to their institutions and to their 
state of society. 

MARYLAND, DELAWARE, PENNSYLVANIA, NEW JERSEY, 
NEW YORK, RHODE ISLAND, CONNECTICUT, MASSACHU- 
SETTS, AND THEIR PRODUCTIONS. 

The States of Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, !N'ew 
Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Mas- 
sachusetts cover 128,344 square miles, and contain a popu- 
lation, according to the census of 1850, of 8,036,152, which, 
by this time, has increased to above ten milhons. The 
largest of these States, and the largest proportion of the 
people, are agricultural, and therefore it is safe to say, 
however much more enters into their trade, they produce 
their own food, so far as it is domestic, at a cost of $50 
for each individual. Fully one-third of these ten millions 
reside in cities and towns, and purchase their food from 
hand to mouth, paying the highest retail price. The 
population being ten millions, and paying $50 each on 
the average for their food, yearly expend thus $500,000,000 ; 
and such is the traflic in provisions and breadstuff's in these 
States, that at least twenty-five per cent, on this sum goes 
into the hands of merchants, small traders, and other in- 
termediate dealers and transporters. The large sum of 
$125,000,000 thus enures to their support, whose office is 
merely that of distributing sustenance to the people. It 



ANDNEWYORK. 27 

is safe to say that two-fifths of this business, $200,000,000 
at the least, is managed and controlled by ISTew York mer- 
chants, or their agents, and that it affords a profit to the 
large and small dealers of that city of twenty per cent, on 
the whole amount, say P0,000,000. 

The products of industry in those eight States, not per- 
taining to the food of man or beast, is stated, in the census 
of 1850, at $687,828,248. Whatever doubts may be enter- 
tained of the figures of that census, the magnitude of this 
production is proved to be fully equal to this statement, 
if not considerably beyond it, by the census of the State 
of Massachusetts and that of New York, and by the various 
estimates of Boards of Trade in many cities, proving that 
the national census had fallen short of, instead of exceed- 
ing, the sum of industry in those States. The increase of 
production in Massachusetts and New York, as shown by 
the census of 1855 in each State, satisfies us that the esti- 
mate of fifty per cent, as the increase of production from 
1850 to 1860, is not too large. "We therefore give the 
above sum with the addition of fifty per cent., viz., 
$1,031,742,372, as the product of the machinery, the 
mines, aud the mechanic arts, with the labor of those eight 
States at this time. As the sales of these products have 
their special centre in New York as a chief distributing 
point, not less than $400,000,000 in value of these products 
pay tribute to New York merchants, or to capital wielded 
b}' them, in the shape of expenses, charges, and profits, of 
not less than fifteen per cent., or $60,000,000, on sales 
wholesale and retail. 

It appears, then, from this approximation, that the fi.ve 
Cotton States contribute to New York a business of two 
hundred millions, yielding a profit of sixteen and a half 
millions ; and that the eight States neighboring to New 
York furnish a business of six hundred millions, Avith a 
profit of one hundred millions. 

These two groups of States contain less than half tho 
population of the United States. It is well known that 



28 THE FIVE COTTON STATES 

tlie "Western and Soutli-western States are productive in a 
higli degree, and that tliey carry on a much heavier trade 
with New York than the five Cotton States of which we 
have spoken. We shall not err greatly, if we estimate 
that the remaining States, with their sixteen millions of 
population, furnish to I^ew York as large a business, with 
as much advantage in the way of profit, as the eight 
specified. K we do not err in this, New York enjoys a 
business of fourteen hundred millions of dollars, of which 
two hundred come from the five Cotton States. K the 
whole of the charges and profits be taken into account, 
so far as they enure to New York, including freights, the 
income resulting to that city on that business exceeds two 
hundred and eighty millions of dollars — a sum far greater 
than the gross value of the whole cotton crop of the United 
States, and double the gross value of the cotton crop of the 
five States. 

These figures and statements ought to convince those 
who have thought that the trade in products of Southern 
industry was that which chiefly enriched and built up the 
great cities of New York and Brooklyn, that they have 
been laboring under a grievous mistake. The annual 
profits of the business done in those cities far exceed the 
gross product of Southern industry, leaving out of the 
latter breadstuff's and provisions. To show that we have 
not overrated the business of New York, we again refer 
to the amount of the payments made there, of which we 
have accurate returns from the Clearing House. These 
reports show that the payments of the years specified Avere 
as follows : — 

1854 $5,750,455,987 

1855 5,362,912,098 

1856 6,906,213,328 

1857 8,383,226,718 

1858 4,756,664,386 

1859 6,448,005,956 

1860 7,231,143,056 

(These years commence with October and end in September. 



A N D N E W Y R K . 29 

To tliis vast aggregate of paymeuts one-third may be 
added for such as are not made through the Clearing 
House. 

Almost every article in the channels of trade is sold 
more than once, and very many five or six or more times. 
Each of these sales may originate paper, which is collected 
through the banks ; thus swelling the volume of payments 
above the mere value of the commodities which are being 
distributed. If, then, the commodities which are received 
into and distributed by New York are worth only fourteen 
hundred millions yearly, the amount of payments arising 
out of this business will be greatly increased by repeated 
transactions in the same articles. The payments are also 
largely increased in amount by operations in credit, money, 
and stocks. Thus the payments are swelled to the vast 
sum of eight or ten thousand millions in a year, upon all 
which New York gathers more or less profit. This fur- 
nishes to the South no real cause of complaint, and is, in 
fact, no injury. Philadelphia suffers more, far more, from 
this aggregation of business in New York than the whole 
State of South Carolina. It is all the legitimate and direct 
result of free trade between the States. 

This great industry of the Northern, Middle, and "West- 
ern States, not only builds up New York and Brooklyn, 
but also Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburg, Cin- 
ciunatti, Louisville, St. Louis, Chicago, and a host of other 
cities, containing together a population and wealth double 
that of New York and Brooklyn. Cities do not thrive well 
upon Southern soil. There is no middle class to build 
and inhabit them ; and no employment for such a class. 
There is no machinery for them to construct and keep in 
motion ; there is no field for invention ; few, if any, houses 
or factories to build ; and, of course, the class of people 
who do this work cannot dwell in a country where the 
system of industry excludes them — where, in fixct, they 
are not only not wanted, but repelled. The capitalists of 
the South believe that their interests are best promoted 



30 THE FIVE COTTON STATES 

by exporting cotton, and importing the articles whicii this 
middle class would manufacture, while they were fed upon 
products of Southern soil, furnished with little addition to 
the force now employed in agriculture. A middle class 
of manufacturers and mechanics spread over the immense 
area of Southern territory, to the number of four millions, 
would consume of Southern products fifty dollars' worth 
each, and afford a market for two hundred millions of 
dollars' worth of breadstuffs and provisions, double the 
price of all the land in cultivation and the population of 
all the cities. 

But if this middle class cannot safely be introduced into 
the system of Southern industry, then the effort should 
be made to train the slaves, as far as practicable, to the 
occupations of this middle class. It is, undoubtedly, pos- 
sible to recast the industry of the South, so as to double 
its productiveness, with the same kind of labor, by intro- 
ducing somewhat more skill, enterprise, and invention. 
"Within thirty or forty years the agriculture of Great 
Britain has been revolutionized, and its products nearly 
doubled. The simple fact, that from five to eight times 
as much animal food can be raised under ground as above 
it, has become there an element of agriculture, has made 
every farm a manufactory^ of manure, and has attracted to 
farming, as a profitable business, men of science, of large 
capital and great enterprise. When the crops which de- 
velop under the ground, as well as those above it — when 
the fruits of the garden and orchard, are allowed their 
proper position in Southern agriculture, a new career of 
Southern production will begin, similar to that which has 
occurred in Great Britain. 

It is a fact, worthy not only of remark, but of deep study, 
that the various systems of industry and of domestic trade 
prevailing in the United States, have been adopted, and 
lono- carried on, without anj^ restriction between ourselves. 
Climate, soil, social institutions, natural character, and the 
free action of a people spread over a space much larger 



A N D N E \Y Y R K . 31 

than many of the largest countries of Europe, taken 
together, have determined the kind and the localities of 
our various branches of industry, and the position and 
growth of our cities. This division of labor has formed 
the channels of a domestic trade which has no parallel in 
the world, for extent and value, among an equal number 
of people. There is no other equal population, where the 
actual producers — the planters, the farmers, the manufac- 
turers and mechanics — pay so large a proportion of their 
earnings to the intermediate classes, whose business it is 
to distribute the products of industry. It seems to be 
a heavy burden upon industry ; but it is all the result of 
individual choice and free trade in business. So far as 
individuals, acting freely, can shape and consolidate a 
great national industry, and domestic trade to correspond, 
it has been done in this country. It is true, that in an 
early period of our history the New England States, which 
had betaken themselves to foreign commerce and the 
shipping business generally, were driven from trade to 
manufacturing by the non-intercourse acts and the follow- 
ing war with Great Britain. These States occupy a soil 
and climate which permit no delay or hesitation in the 
choice of employments. The people must work or stai've. 
The Middle States betook themselves to agriculture, for 
which their soil and habits were adapted ; but, not finding 
in jSTew England nor abroad a market for their products, 
they too began to manufacture, that they might establish 
a population at their own doors to consume products of 
their farms for which they could find no other market. 
Both IsTew England and the Middle States have, at vast 
expense in the way of experiment, with large losses in a 
struggle against foreign competition, and with an outlay 
of ingenuity and invention previously without parallel, 
succeeded, as a manufacturing people, beyond all antici- 
pation. We have now a population of fifteen millions, 
as well clad and with dwellings as well furnished as any 
equal number of people ; whose expenditure for clothing, 



32 THE PIVE COTTON STATES 

furniture, &c., may be safely estimated at fifty dollars a 
head — not including articles of domestic food ; and yet 
of tliis production we receive from foreign countries less 
than ten dollars' worth for each person. We make at home 
more than four-fifths of our whole consumption, and we 
are the most lavish consumers in the world. 

This aptness for manufactnring industry, and the perma- 
nent success which has at length been attained, have pro- 
duced results unfavorable to a proper development of 
Southern and "Western industry. The Southern States, 
having no shelter from the flood of Northern products, 
owing to the whole power of commercial regulation being 
lodged in Congress, were overwhelmed with every article 
required for their houses and plantations, to such extent, 
as to discourage all attempts at competition with an indus- 
try so supported by machinery, and so fortified by patents. 
The cheapness of the commodities thus furnished did not 
atone for the evil of their abundance, which effectually 
prevented that diversity of occupation essential to a 
sound and strong community, and an independent state 
of society. It prevented the due increase of the white 
population, and the growth of towns and cities. There 
could be no employment for such increase ; the older 
States have therefore sent off" their increase of population 
to other States. K South Carolina were to call home all 
her native-born citizens who reside out of the State, she 
would more than double her white population ; but she 
would call them home to starve, unless a different system 
of industry were inaugurated. 

If the Southern States had enjoyed the same unre- 
stricted and untaxed intercourse with the rest of the world 
as this with the ISTorthern States, the result could have 
been no better. Foreign merchants and manufacturers 
are as much given to crowding the markets to which they 
have free access, as those of our own country. In fact, if 
such had been the case, not a factory could have been 
built in the face of such competition as European mer- 



ANDNEWYORK. 33 

chants and manufacturers would have brought to the free 
ports of the South. The white population would have 
shrunk still more from a struggle in which neither skill, 
nor enterprise, nor capital in the South, could have thrown 
a shuttle, or lifted a hammer. The population would 
have, of necessity, become proportioned to the power to 
own slaves, and to the market for cotton. No white 
population would have been required, but the proprietors 
of the slaves, the overseers, and a few assistants ; and to 
this condition society would have subsided in the States 
where the lands were occupied, or partly worn out, if the 
Southern ports had been open to the world without duty 
or restriction. Under such a policy there would have 
been even less diversity of occupation than has occurred 
under Northern competition. Something has been done, 
though far short of what the true interests of the Southern 
people demanded, under the protection of higher prices 
prevailing at the North, owing to the higher wages paid 
for labor in this country, and to the fact that our public 
revenue was derived from duties upon imports, with some 
discrimination in favor of domestic manufactures. Even 
with this aid the Northern and Middle States have in- 
curred losses frightful to contemplate, in attaining to their 
present measure of success in manufactures. 

As a revenue adequate to the purposes of government 
must, in some form, be paid under any circumstances, we 
cannot see what signal benefit could have accrued to the 
Southern people as a comjoensation for the utter repression 
. of all production but that of cotton. They have had enough 
of that mistaken policy to create some doubts of its cor- 
rectness. 

It is a great mistake to suppose that the South could, by 
free ports, derive a benefit proportioned to the amount of 
duties now assessed upon foreign goods paid for by ex- 
ported cotton. The expenses of making cotton are very 
largely made up of items which do not involve the con- 
sumption of imported goods. The interest on investments 
3 



34 THEFIVECOTTONSTATES 

in land and negroes, the purchase and keeping of mules, 
oxen, horses, agricultural implements and machinery, the 
replacing, repairing, and overseeing, the hospital expenses 
and medical attendance, the repairs to buildings, taxes, lum- 
ber, transportation to market, commissions, etc. : — all these, 
and other expenses which cannot be estimated at less than 
fifty per cent, on the value of the crop at the ordinary prices, 
are little affected by the duties paid at the Custom-House. 
The planter of cotton could not pay this portion of the 
expense with foreign goods imported free of duty ; it 
must, in the main, be paid in cash ; and it is, to a large 
extent, done by receiving advances on cotton fi'om the 
merchants to whom it is consigned, who in turn reimburse 
themselves by selling bills drawn on the cotton in New 
York, or elsewhere. The planters cannot save the amount 
of the duties on the value of the cotton exported, because 
they cannot afibrd to receive the whole value in foreign 
goods ; the cotton exported is mortgaged for much more 
than half its value to pay debts and advances ; it is ex- 
ported for other account than that of the producers. 

"TRACT No. 3"— DOCTRINES OF THE REVOLUTIONISTS. 

Before dismissing this part of our subject, we take up a 
pamphlet now lying before us, published at Charleston in 
1860, being " Tract Ko. 3. To the People of the South. 
Senator Hammond and the Tribune. By Troup. Read 
and send to your Neighbor." From the manner in which 
this production is put forth, we may take for granted it ex- 
presses the opinions of the men who are leaders of the pre- 
sent movement in Charleston. It would be very hard else 
to believe that Senator Hammond ever uttered what is there 
ascribed to him. The language quoted is from his speech in 
the Senate of the United States on the 4th of March, 1858, 
and consists chiefly of an eulogy upon the South. Upon 
the military power of the South it contains statements so 
marvellous, as to excite some wonder as to the extraor- 



A N D N E W Y R K . 35 

dinary things which are to be revealed in other departs 
ments of the concerns of that State. He has nothing to 
say against the men of the North: "But they produce no 
great staples that the South does not produce, while we 
produce two or three, and those the very greatest, that she 
can never produce." It is virtually denied here that our 
manufacturers produce any staple goods, or that there can 
be any other staples than those which are agricultural. 
But even if that were the case, much might be advanced 
in refutation of this position. Every Northern man will 
smile at the extreme self-complacency which dictated such 
an assertion. We shall only oppose to it the Northern 
staple which is of cash value equal to the whole cotton 
crop. We know it is objected to this, that hay, instead 
of being a profitable crop, is a burden to the industry of 
the North; that the South does not need such provender; 
and that, to dispense with it, is a clear saving. The man who 
invented this reply to the Northern boast about the hay 
crop, thought he -had rescued the South from the sad pre- 
dicament of being outbragged. But as the Northern 
farmers continue to produce and enlarge their crop of 
hay, to sell it, and to put the money in their pockets, they 
probably were never even struck with the plausibility of 
the economical position which marks down the whole hay 
crop to less than nothing. This wholesale depreciation 
goes upon the principle that nothing is of any value unless 
it is wanted at the South. There is a degree of self-com- 
placency in this which approaches the superlative. Our 
warm houses, our warm clothes, our coal, our multitu- 
dinous machinery, our ships — but we need not specify; 
we have, in the North, hundreds of millions invested in 
property which is not wanted by the South ; we produce 
annually, of articles not wanted by the South, a value 
many times that of the cotton crop — articles which are as 
much cash articles as cotton. , 

The Northern and Middle States produced, in 1850, up- 
wards of eleven millions tons of hay, and they produce now 



36 THE FIVE COTTON STATES 

at least sixteen millions of tons, wortli over two hundred 
millions of dollars in money. Northern hay is a very 
nutritious provender for horses and cattle, as is shown by 
the size and condition of the animals which are fed upon 
it. In the North, cattle are grown, by its help, to the 
common weight of 1000 to 1500 pounds; whilst those 
fed upon Southern pastures seldom exceed a third of that 
weight. The Southern people are, however, far from 
being insensible to the value of Northern hay, as any ob- 
serving person will have seen who has been on the 
wharves, or in the stables of Southern cities, where it sells 
at a price which would carry the value of the whole crop 
of the North far above three hundred millions of dollars.'*' 



* The following communication, which appeared in the Charleston 
Mercury, November 15th, 1860, furnishes a suitable commentary 
upon what is advanced above : 

"northern hay." 
To the Editor of the Charleston Mercury : 

We have habituated ourselves to dependence on the North for 
many things which might be produced at home. Any interruption 
of. our intercourse with Northern ports will be attended with tempo- 
rary inconvenience. For my part I desire this interruption, for it 
will set the seal to our deliverance from thraldom, and turn our atten 
tion to new and more profitable relations springing from free trade, 
untrammelled by political influences. 

The point I would call attention to may seem a small matter ; but 
almost every horse in Charleston, and many in some of the towns in 
the interior, is fed on Northern hay. Should the supply be cut oflF, 
we will feel the want severely. Moreover, should there arise any 
occasion for assembling or moving troops, especially on the seaboard, 
during this winter, we will find our operations cramped by this want 
sooner than by any other. 

I would suggest, therefore, to rice-planters on all the rivers, that 
although straw is a poor substitute for hay, still it is a substitute, 
and an exceedingly cheap one. * By selecting the best, that is, the 
greenest straw, and preserving and baling it as soon as threshed, it is 



ANDNEWTORK. 37 

The strange notion wliicli seems to have entered the 
minds of some of the Southern people, that no product of 
industry is to be regarded as an item of wealth, unless it 
is an article of export, is so absurd as scarce to deserve a 
denial, much less a formal refutation. The fact that the 
products of industry amount annually, in the United 
States, to upwards of three thousand millions of dollars, 
and that not more than ten per cent, of the amount is 
exported, is enough to dispel that fancy. 

"But the strength of a nation depends, in a great 
measure, upon its wealth, and the wealth of a nation, like 
that of a man, is to be estimated by its surplus production. 
You may go to your trashy census-books, full of falsehood 
and nonsense — ... you may estimate what is made 
throughout the country from these census-books ; but it 
is no matter how much is made, if it is all consumed. J£ 
a man is worth millions of dollars, and consumes his in- 
come, is he rich ? Is he competent to embark in any new 
enterprises ? Can he build ships or roads ? And could a 
people in that condition build ships or roads, or go to 
war ? All the enterprises of peace and war depend upon 
the surplus productions of a people." The doctrine of 
surplus, as thus stated by Senator Hammond, will be new 
to men versed in the affairs of the world ; but it was, no 
doubt, intended chiefly for the people of his own State, 
and to them it must have carried no small consolation. 
The idea of a surplus, as generally entertained in the 
ISTorth, whether of manufactures or of agriculture, is, what 
is left after paying expenses. The maker of cotton goods 
counts as his surplus that which remains to him at the 
end of the year, after paying for raw material, labor, and 
other unavoidable charges upon his production. The 

at once in a shape to be portable, and to keep without deterioration. 
There is at least one kind of hay-press which is both efficient and 
cheap, costing less than S50 ; and at this crisis it may prove profit- 
able to the planter, and useful to the State. G. M. 



38 THE FIVE COTTON STATES 

word is used in another sense by the manufacturer who at 
the end of the year has not used all the raw material pur- 
chased for the supply of his establishment. He has a 
surplus ; that is, it is in his possession or under his con- 
trol. It is available for the next year. K a cotton planter 
were to sell his cotton, as soon as prepared for market, 
until he had realized the cost of making his whole crop, 
what remained would be his surplus, or, translated into 
plain Anglo-Saxon, it would be so much over and above 
expenses. This is the way men of business understand 
it ; but the South Carolina Senator, certainly, propounds 
a doctrine far more consolatory to the people of that State. 
He announces, that whatever products his State exports 
to foreign countries or to the E'orth is surplus. As the 
manufacturers of that State use no more cotton than would 
be grown upon two or three plantations, his doctrine is, 
that all the cotton made, with this small exception, is sur- 
plus and evidence of the wealth of the State ; and this in 
the face of the fact, that it costs at least six cents a pound 
to make, and that nearly all the cotton is either sold or 
under heavy advances when it is exported. It is very safe 
to say, that nine-tenths of the cotton is exported on 
Northern or foreign accouut or under advances to three- 
fourths of its value. It is not exported by the planters 
nor by Southern merchants: it is sold or pledged, and 
then shipped for account of the purchaser or whoever 
makes the advances. 

The Senator goes on to state, that in the year 1857 
the foreign exports of the United States amounted to 
$279,000,000, and that " of this $158,000,000 were of the 
clear produce of the South." He then proceeds, by a 
process of quoting quite as questionable as consulting the 
"trashy census-books," to swell the amount of Southern 
exports to |220,000,000. Upon this summit of production 
he rests the claims of the supremacy of Southern industry 
and wealth. " The recorded ex-ports of the South are now 
greater than the whole exports of the United States for 



ANDNEWYORK. 39 

the last twelve years." ... "If I am right in my calcu- 
lations as to $220,000,000 of surplus produce, there is not 
a nation on the face of the earth, with any numerous popu- 
lation, that can compete with us in produce per capita. It 
amounts to $16.66 per head, suj)posing we have twelve 
millions of people. England," he proceeds, "with all her 
accumulated wealth, &c., makes but $16 of surplus pro- 
duction per head " ; and then he puts the North down to 
ten dollars per head. According to this mode of estimat- 
ing wealth, if South Carolina manufactured all her own 
cotton, she would have no sui3)lus production whatever: 
the planter who sells his cotton to one of the Southern 
factories, and gets the money for it, has no surplus, and 
has not added to his own or the wealth of the State, be- 
cause he has not exported his cotton. 

If England were to build her factories in the South, 
purchase and pay for all the cotton, and manufacture it 
there, we cannot perceive how the Cotton States would 
be any poorer ; but upon the doctrine of the Senator of 
South Carolina they w^ould have lost all their surplus, 
which by his rule is all their crop. But we need not 
chase further this extraordinary assertion of the Senator ; 
it would not have been worthy of a moment's notice, but 
for the fact that many in the South seemed to have been 
inoculated with the same error, and are now sufl'erino- 
severely in consequence. There is absolutely nothing in 
the industry of the South, nothing in the character of "the 
people, nothing in the institution of slavery, nothing in 
the skill, enterprise, or science of the people, which ex- 
empts them individually or collectively from a law of 
social economy, which applies to every system of produc- 
tion : — It matters not, whether the product be sold on 
the spot where it is made, in the neighboring town or sea- 
port, or whether it be sent round the world for a market ; 
what the commodity cost the producer in labor or money, 
when compared with what the sale brings, clear of all 
expenses, is the profit, surplus, or gain of the producer. 



40; THE FIVECOTTON STATES 

A large export trade in cotton might be carried on, in 
which the amount might run up to hundreds of millions, 
with a heavy loss every year. The question must still be 
with the South, as well as the North, what is left after the 
year's business is adjusted — that is, the surplus which 
will add to the common wealth. 

Another of the Senator's axioms of political economy 
is, that a man may be worth millions, but he cannot be 
rich if he consumes his income. He aj)plies this to the 
North, and on the ground that the North daes not export 
its products, he concludes that, no matter how much is 
produced, it is all consumed. The condition of the North 
is, in the Senator's estimation, that it consumes its wealth, 
and has not, therefore, the ability "to build ships, or rail- 
roads, or embark in any new enterpris.e." Facts not very 
remote seem to contradict this doctrine. The South, 
according to the Senator, has the wealth, as evinced by its 
exports : the North has built the ships, and has very far 
transcended the South in all kinds of jndustrial and com- 
mercial enterprises. The South has, we cannot but re- 
mark, been very much misunderstood, if its people do not 
generally consume their income. It is commonly believed 
that a very great- majority of the planters spend their in- 
come before their cotton has reached its final market. 
Before the fact of exportation can be admitted as proof of 
Southern wealth, it should be known by whom it is ex- 
ported, how much was sold before shipment and to whom, 
how much mortgaged and to what extent. Accurate in- 
formation on these points might reveal the curious fact, 
that the North exports the cotton, and that it is a Northern 
surplus which goes to Europe in the shape of cotton-bales. 
The Five Cotton States are large importers of Northern 
commodities, many of which are made expressly for them ; 
in payment for these, and for advances on cotton, they 
give not their surplus of cotton, but the chief part of their 
cotton, either in kind, or in Bills of Exchange drawn upon 
it, or Bills of Lading transferring the ownership of it. 



ANDNEWTORK. 41 

This by way of suggestion to the Senator, lest he provoke 
more particular researches into the question, Who exports 
the cotton ? Be that as it may, it is susceptible of 
very clear proof, that the Five Cotton States spend their 
entire annual income. The facts and considerations already 
adduced show this ; but no such unfavorable inferences 
need be drawn from this expenditure as those made by 
the Senator. It is no matter of reproach, nor proof of 
poverty, to spend an income ; the question is. How is it 
spent ? 

THE INCOME OF THE EIGHT STATES— HOW IT IS SPENT. 

We do not deny the allegation of the Senator, that at 
the Korth we spend every year our vast income ; nor is 
there much objection to disclose how we spend it. The 
North has now twenty millions of people, who expend, on 
the average, for clothing, furniture, and house-rent, ^50 
for each per-son. That consumes about a thousand millions 
of dollars of their income : of this only about ten or twelve 
dollars for each is imported, which imposes a tax of about 
two dollars each. The North has, in the last iifty years, 
made a huge investment in houses, factories, and the im- 
provement of estates in land. In the eight States men- 
tioned as being near to New York, and as covering 
128,000 square miles, the cities of New York and Brook- 
lyn have been built with their 86,000 houses, the city of 
Philadelphia with its 89,000 houses, the cities of Balti- 
more and Boston with their 80,000 houses — the furnaces, 
foundries, machine-shops, the woollen and cotton facto- 
ries, and other manufacturing establishments — having 
cost at least two thousand millions, but worth to-day not 
more than fifteen hundred millions. The heaviest invest- 
ment made by the eight States, however, is in the improve- 
ment of their lands, of which they own 128,000 square 
miles, upon which a vast amount of labor and money has 
been expended in buildings, drainage, fencing, and im- 



42 THE FIVE COTTON STATES 

proving the soil, so tliat it is now fairly worth an average 
of $30 per acre, or $20,000 a square mile. 

A large amount of Northern savings has been invested 
in shipping, and in sea and river steamers, of which the 
capacity is stated in the Treasury Reports at upwards of 
one million of tons. This cost a vast sum more ; it is safe 
to place the value now at fifty millions. 

These eight States have constructed 9,000 miles of rail- 
way, and 2500 miles of canals, which cost above $25,000 
per mile, and may be put down as worth at least $20,000, 
or, altogether, $230,000,000. 

Manj^ other important items of Northern wealth, deve- 
loped and made available by Northern capital and Northern 
labor, might be added, such as mines of coal, iron, and 
other metals, the annual crop of ice, etc. ; but we have 
stated enough to show that if, at the North, we consume 
our income, we have something to show for the consump- 
tion. 

» 
Investments of the States of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, 

Neio York, Neio Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, 

with an estimated pojndation of ten millions. 

For Clothing and Furniture (annual) $500,000,000 

New York and Brooklyn, 86,000 houses at $6000... 516,000,000 

Philadelphia, 89,000 houses at $4000 356,000,000 

Baltimore and Boston, 80,000 houses at $4000 320,000,000 

Factories, Furnaces, Machinery of every kind 1,500,000,000 

Land, 128,000 square miles at $20,000 2,867,200,000 

Shipping and Steamers of the eight States 40,000,000 

Railroads, 9000 miles — Canals, 2500 miles 230,000,000 

16,329,200,000 

In the five Cotton States their population is eighteen to 
the square mile, in the eight States it is eighty ; in the 
first, the land is worth on the average five dollars, and 
thirty dollars in the other. In the five States there is a 
mile of railroad or canal for every eighty square miles of 



AND NEW YORK. 



43 



territory ; in the eight, there is one for every eleven square 
miles. Both North and South, the system of agriculture 
has been very far from what it should be ; but the Southern 
system has proved the worst. By the census of 1850, South- 
ern lands were valued at six dollars the acre ; in the eight 
States named, at over thirty-five dollars. If the 2,060,000 
of white population in the five States consume to the value 
of fifty dollars in clothing and furniture for each per- 
son, amounting to over one hundred millions of dollars, 
we cannot understand how they pay for it — for their sur- 
plus for all purposes, except food, is less than sixty mil- 
lions, and probably not exceeding fifty millions. But we 
forbear to follow this contrast, and hope that those who 
are most concerned will do it for themselves, and be 
stimulated to study their true economical interests in the 
light of the "trashy census-books," rather than under the 
inspiration of the wild conjectures and egregious errors of 
Senator Hammond. The census-books, whatever be their 
imperfections, are safer guides than the figures or the 
fancies of Senator Hammond's Speech. 

It would not have been worth while to follow the Sena- 
tor of South Carolina in his mistaken statements and ill- 
considered conclusions, if we had not known they were 
entertained by multitudes who are, at this moment, in- 
spired by them in their rash and thoughtless efforts to 
break away from a government and confederacy from 
which, if they have not derived all the benefits they ought 
to have enjoyed, it is chiefly their own fault. The Union 
of the States, by bringing a larger territory and a more 
widely diffused people under one government, no doubt 
made it absolutely necessary to study and work out new 
problems of labor and social economy. Instead of doing 
this, to the extent it has been done at the North, the five 
Cotton States have betaken themselves to the single indus- 
trial occupation of planting, and to the single political 
occupation of party politics. Having neglected to make 
the most of a very advantageous position, they are now 



44 THE FIVE COTTON STATES 

making gigantic efforts to change that position, and 
achieve one full of danger, and only to be maintained at 
continuous risk and enormous expense. One-half the ex- 
penditure to be incurred in attaining an independent posi- 
tion, and making it secure, would place these States in 
the Union in a position both of power and wealth, from 
which they would have no wish to escape. 

OTHER SPECIMENS OF THE SENATOR'S SPEECH. 

The Senator plumes himself exceedingly upon the im- 
mense production of the South : " If I am right in my 
calculation of §220,000,000 of surplus produce, there is 
not a nation on the face of the earth, with any numerous 
population, that can compete with us in produce per 
capita. It amounts to $16.66 per head, supposing that we 
have 12,000,000 of people. England, with all her accumu- 
lated wealth and concentrated energy, makes but $16 of 
surplus production per head." In the estimate of the five 
Cotton States, we have allowed for an export of cotton, 
producing $29 for each person, which makes the Senator s 
argument stronger. An income of $29 for each person does 
not make a people rich, even if they are provided with 
food. If these States were producing commodities con- 
sumed at home to the extent of $20 each, and exported to 
the amount of $29 each, it would afford evidence of 
wealth. But they export nearly their entire product, 
which is cotton only, giving them $29 each, out of which 
they have to pay $16 each for the expense of producing 
their cotton, leaving only $13 for all other purposes to 
each person, or $55,000,000 altogether. The reference of 
the Senator to England is not a happy one. The products 
of the industry of the United Kingdom, besides those of 
agriculture, upon which they rely for food, is not less than 
X280,000,000, or about XIO for each person. If the foreign 
trade of the United Kingdom earns enough to pay for the 
raw material of the British manufacturers, which may be 



AND NEW YORK. 45 

the case, the British and Ii-ish people enjoy an average 
income of $50 for each person, besides so much of their 
food as is derived from their own soil : whilst the highest 
net income the five Cotton States can justly claim for each 
individual is $13 upon the whole population, and about 
$27 for the whites. 

Upon the principle of the Senator, the planters who 
make sugar and the manufacturers who make iron can 
have no surplus, for they export nothing ; or, if he admits 
the idea of domestic exports, then his doctrine is, that all 
the sugar and iron sold is surplus production. But both 
these classes of men would be slow to admit, as a fact, 
that their whole product, if sold, was their surplus. Those 
persons in the Cotton States who are of the Senator's way 
of thinking, have, it is feared, lost sight of the fact, that 
the expense of production must be paid, before a sui-plus 
can be realized or a dividend made. With |13 for each 
individual, after paying the expense of making and placing 
their cotton in market, the Senator should be cautious in 
proclaiming the South to be the most productive region 
'^ on the face of the earth " ! 



THE SENATOR'S ESTIMATE OP THE REVENUE, SOUTH. 

" With an export of $220,000,000," the Senator remarks, 
" under the present tariff", the South, organized separately, 
would have $40,000,000 of revenue." Even if the South 
had commodities to that value to export, it cannot ex-port 
them without help from some quarter: it must sell a 
large portion, and receive heavy advances on the remainder. 
The South cannot, by any possibility, for twenty years to 
come, pay for foreign commodities enough to raise forty 
millions of revenue under the duties imposed by the pre- 
sent tariff': there is no escape on the part of the South 
from the dire necessity of paying for the production of the 
two hundred millions' worth of home commodities which 
would be sent to pay for the two hundred millions' worth 



46 THEFIVECOTTONSTATES 

of foreign goods upon which that amount of revenue could 
be levied. For, though slaves work without wages, the 
expense of their clothes, medical attendance, overseers, 
hospitals, houses, furniture, &c., involves a large outlay. 
The South could not purchase that quantitj^ of goods, 
because the people have not now, and never had, the 
means to pay for them. We believe the South does not 
in any year purchase and pay for forty millions' worth of 
foreign commodities ; nor does the desire exist there 
to consume two hundred millions' worth of foreign goods. 
If there did not exist the least obstacle in the way of 
duties upon imports, the South, it is believed, would pur- 
chase the largest portion of her supplies from the North, 
and especially agricultural implements, all kinds of vehicles 
npon wheels from the finest carriages for pleasure to the 
coarsest and strongest carts and wheelbarrows, wooden 
furniture, and cabinet work. The foreign freight on such 
articles would equal a heavy duty. Besides, the same 
universal facilities for credit could not be obtained in 
Europe as in the North. The people living in neighboring 
countries in Europe do not give to each other any such 
credit as the JsTorthern cities give to Southern merchants. 
They could onl}^ obtain credit at a banker's upon a deposit 
of cotton. Imagine that Southern merchants and planters 
eiyoyed no other credit than what they could obtain upon 
cotton in Liverpool or Havre. They have heretofore 
obtained either the whole money, or a heavy advance, 
before the cotton left the American port ; in addition to 
which the Southern merchant, through -whom the planters 
receive their supplies, obtains a credit in New York and 
other Northern cities of eight to twelve months for his 
purchases, which enables him to extend a like credit or 
a still longer one to the planters. This system gives the 
planters one entire year of credit, or, in other words, 
capital for a year's business one year in advance. No 
such credit as this can be established with European mer- 
chants. It is contrary to all their usages and ideas of safe 
methods of trade. 



ANDNEWYORK. 47 



"THE SOUTH WOULD NEVER GO TO WAR " — " NEVER 
DREAM OF WAR." 

"The South," says the Senator, "would never go to 
war. It is commerce that breeds war. It is manufac- 
tures, that require to be hawked about the world, that 
give rise to navies and commerce." Wliat a tranquil, 
inofi'ensive people are they of the South ! They resort to 
arms ! N"o : only do as they tell you, hold your tongue, 
and have no opinion about any thing where Slavery is 
concerned, and you need not fear their pistols, knives, or 
canes ! — We leave this remarkable opinion or prophecy 
of the wise Senator to the men of the South who are 
shouting defiance to the United States, and stand bristling 
with arms. 

"But we have nothing to do," he continues, "but to 
take oiF restrictions upon foreign merchandise and open 
our ports, and the whole world will come to us to trade." 
The "whole world" is not likely to be in the least degree 
excited by the prospect of free access to less than ten 
millions of people, of whom half are African slaves. Two 
hundred millions of dollars' worth of cotton, upon which 
the holders want an advance of one hundred and fifty 
millions in money, will make but a small ripple on the 
surface of the world's commerce. The South has never 
exported but a small portion of her own products, and can 
never become an exporter to any extent of the products 
of the iS"orth. The ports of the South are not surrounded 
with such a population as can aftbrd basis for any con- 
siderable trade ; nor is that population, such as it is, so 
occupied as to uphold a large trade. The South does not 
build up cities or towns, and cannot have a, great foreign 
trade, because she has not the consumers; and it can 
invite foreign trade only to the extent the people have the 
means of buying. The whole products of the South, even 
if they could be all expended in foreign products, would 



48 THE FIVE COTTON STATES 

not build up a Baltimore, mucli less a New York. There 
are maiij- Free Ports, or ports where the duties are merely 
nominal, in Europe, such as Hamburg, Bremen, Lubec, 
Genoa, and Leghorn, each one of which is surrounded 
with a population of ten millions of free whites in the 
same space where there is one million of free and slave 
in the South; l^ot one of these Free Ports has a popula- 
tion or wealth equal to the City of Boston. The system 
of industry adopted by the South forbids the growth of ' 
cities and the increase of free population. 'No oflers which 
the South can make to the commercial world will tempt 
the world's agents to leave their chosen channels of trade, 
and come to the four ports of the South for lwo hundred 
millions of dollars' worth of cotton. It is a vast and 
varied industry which begets a great exchange o^ com- 
modities and builds cities. Those of Great Bricain only 
commenced their growth when the manufacturing career 
of that country began. Irish cities do not grov*^; nor does 
Ireland increase in wealth, as England and Scotland. 

"WITHOUT FIRING A GUN" — "THE WHOLE WORLD AT 
OUR FEET." 

o 

" Without firing a gun, without drawing a sword, should 
they make war upon us, we could bring the whole world 
to our feet." The South, according to the Senator, is 
nearly omnipotent. It needs only open its doors, and the 
whole world must come thither to trade and get their 
share of cotton ; but if the world disputes the will of the 
South, it will be brought to a speedy and deep humilia- 
tion — to the very feet of the South — Asia, Africa, Europe, 
South America, and the British Dominions in the North, 
with New York, Pennsylvania, and the great "West, at the 
feet of the South ! Within two years after this bravado 
the South is as busy with guns as ever she was wim 
cotton. The money to be now spent in war would more 
than establish a system of industry in the South which 



AND NEW YORK. 49 

would open up a career of prosperity tenfold what any 
system of free ports could ever attain. 

" The South is perfectly competent to go on one, two, 
or three years, without planting a seed of cotton." That 
will be news to many planters of cotton, and will appear 
very striking intelligence to a large number of dealers 
with the South, who have been under the impression that 
a great majority of the planters spend each year's income 
■,before the cotton is sold. 

" What would happen, if no cotton was furnished for 
three years?" . . . " England would topple headlong, and 
carry the whole civilized world with her. Ko, you dare 
not make war upon cotton. No power on earth dares to 
make war upon it. Cotton is king. Until lately, the Bank 
of England was king; but she tried to put her screws, as 
usual, the fall before the last, on the cotton crop, and was 
utterly vanquished. The last power has been conquered. 
"Who can doubt, that has looked at recent events, that 
cotton is supreme?" This is the kind of gas which 
propels the wheels of revolution in South Carolina. It 
has been forced into the people of Charleston with such 
success, that the whole city is now in a flame, which must 
blaze as long as the gas is supplied. These utterances are 
too mighty for human nature to hear and be tranquil; 
even the great Southern agriculturists, who never " dream 
of war," who are as innocent as they are rich, have become 
perfectly intoxicated with their power and the grandeur 
of King Cotton, who, having vanquished the Bank of 
England and President Buchanan, is now considering what 
he will do with New York and the North. 

To be serious: has not many a man ended his days 
in an insane hospital, who never uttered any thing more 
absurd than this speech ? It could not justify a moment's 
consideration, if the same egregious folly had not taken 
possession of a school of Southern politicians, wlio, under 
the impulse of this madness, are striving, with madmen's 
strength, to pull down the pillars of that Constitution 
4 



50 THE FIVE COTTON STATES 

which has been the chief bulwark of their social system, 
and the foundation of its success, so far as Slavery is 
concerned. 



POLITICAL FREEDOM — TREEDOM OF SPEECH. 

We did not intend to follow the Senator further ; but, 
believing it will be a safe rule to travel in a direction 
opposite to that which he takes, we quote another of his 
opinions, to make it the tgxt of some remarks intended 
to support a very different doctrine. " The greatest strength 
of the South arises from the harmony of her political and 
social institutions. This harriony gr^^es her a frame of 
society, the best in the world, and an extent of political 
freedom, combined with entire securit}-, sucti as no other 
people ever enjoyed upon the face of the earth." Upon 
all the points taken here, there are many who would differ 
strongly from the Senator. The speci?! topic to which 
we would draw the attention of the reader is, the "political 
freedom" here made a matter of boast. 

Slavery is held by the leading politicians in the South, 
and a large class of the leading men who are not poli- 
ticians, to be an institution not only defensible, but c(jm- 
mendable in every respect, and, so far as labor is con- 
cerned, every way preferable to our ISTorthern system of 
labor for wages. It is not our object to discuss the subject 
of Slavery now, nor to give any opinion about it, in a 
moral point of view, further than to say that between the 
master and his African slave the duty of each is to do for 
the other the best that is in his power. The slave being 
brought from savage life needs to be inured to habits of 
labor, to be taught various branches of industry, to be 
civilized and prepared for freedom when the time arrives, 
that emancipation may improve his condition. Freedom 
without due preparation for the change it involves, both 
in the position of the slave and in the society to which he 
belongs, would sink the race emancipated to an immea- 



ANDNEWYORK. 51 

siirably worse condition than Slavery as it now exists in 
our country. The presence of slaves thus emancipated 
would be intolerable ; they would become the criminals, 
vagabonds, paupers, and outcasts of our present civiliza- 
tion. We look upon the Southern masters as men having 
the heavy responsibility of these slaves cast upon them, as 
bound to study the best interests of their people in con- 
nection with the interests of society and the whole coun- 
try, but as accountable for the discharge of their duties in 
this behalf only to their own consciences, to the laws of 
their own States, and to God. We regard African Sla- 
very, as now existing in the South, as justifiable upon 
sound, social, humane, and Christian considerations. We 
would justify no abuse, nor be understood to say that the 
system should not be amended : we mean merely the rela- 
tion of master and slave. This was the opinion and the 
feeling of the leading minds of this country at the time 
our Constitution was adopted. They desired to see an 
end of Slavery, but did not undertake to prescribe how 
that end should be accomplished. That was left to the 
owners of slbves. 

As a larg majority of those who hold slaves in the 
South enteit In much stronger opinions in favor of Sla- 
very now than were then prevalent, nothing pertaining to 
. the subject has surprised us more, or caused greater 
anxiety for the future, than the position generally taken 
by them in reference to the discussion of the subject. 
They maintain that Slavery is a beneficial institution — 
best for the master, best for the slave, best for society; 
they believe that it furnishes a " frame of society the best 
on the face of the earth" ; they declare that society so 
constituted is not only preferable to that of the other 
States where Slavery does not exist, but they insist that 
society without Slavery, in the United States, is a failure ; 
yet they permit no discussion, they tolerate no shades of a 
difierent opinion, they permit not the slightest expression 
of dissent ; they have not only taken away the right of 



^- 



52 THEFIVECOTTON STATES 

free speech, but have established a despotism over the minds 
and the utterance of the people constituting that superior 
society, which has no parallel in the civilized world. K 
this despotism, or any thing approaching it, were neces- 
sary, some justification might be pleaded for an exercise 
of power, which not only shuts the mouth, but crushes the 
mind and manliness of all who are its victims. For fifty 
years, and more, after this government was constituted, 
the subject of Slavery was as freely and publicly discussed 
and talked about, and was the object of as many different 
opinions, as any other great topic. It was discussed in 
the North as occasion required ; and in the South, in pub- 
lic conventions, in Legislatures with reference to the Colo- 
nization Society, with reference to gradual emancipation, 
and the merits of Slavery were often earnestly called in 
question : through all this, for half a century. Slavery flour- 
ished, and no man can point to any evil resulting from 
this free speech that can compare with one hour of the 
savage and watchful despotism enforced for some years 
past in parts of the Southern States. It is a mistake to 
suppose that this tyranny of politicians ind their servant, 
the mob, can be approved by the best people in the South ; 
it is abhorred, and only submitted to for sake of quiet, 
and in the hope that it will be of short duration. If Sla- 
very had not another enemy in the world, not another in- 
fluence working its downfall, this despotism would accom- 
plish it. Who of his neighbors, if a freeman lives in the •. 
South, is to decide what he may or may not say ? The 
Constitution guarantees the right of trial by jury in crimi- 
nal cases, and in cases of civil dispute ; but he who, in the 
South, expresses an opinion in regard to Slavery distaste- 
ful to his hearers, is liable to be seized, imprisoned, beaten, 
tarred and feathered, and banished, if not hung on the 
spot, without trial, judge, or jury. Nay, all this may occur 
to a man who has not breathed a word about Slavery, if 
he only be supposed to come from a place where men 
speak their minds. 



ANDNEWYORK. 53 

In mauy parts of the South, this zeal for the repression 
of free speech has been worked up to a blind rage, which 
smacks strongly of insanity, and the people who indulge 
in it have assumed an attitude so defiant, so fierce and 
vigilant, as to suggest that the whole South is but a maga- 
zine of gun-cotton, ready to explode at the word, or even 
look of a man from the North, or the frank expression of 
an opinion by a man of the South. If every slave were 
made of powder, and liable to go off* at a word, these 
repressionists could not be more on their guard, and more 
ready to pounce upon free speech. They behave as if the 
very existence of Slavery, and the entire fabric of Southern 
society, depended upon silence like death, K the ghosts 
of all the Africans who have been smothered in the mid- 
dle passage — of all who have been thrown overboard to 
escape capture — and of all who have died in Slavery — 
were now besetting these champions of Slavery with all 
the terrors of pandemonium, they could not stand more 
aghast than they do at the appearance of an abolitionist, 
or of a man who may be an abolitionist, or of a man of 
the South who ntters a word not deemed by them ortho- 
dox on the subject of Slavery. 

-Now, whatever be the language of the abolitionists, 
however provoking, however inexcusable both in a social 
and Christian point of view, their chief power to do any 
mischief has arisen from the importance given to them by 
the notice taken of their proceedings, in the South. If 
the South has confidence in its view of Slavery, why listen 
to or resent the ravings of men whose minds are so badly 
adjusted? To be so strongly aftected by the presence or 
language of abolitionists, argues a similar want of balance. 
There has been no President, from Washington to Bu- 
chanan, who has not been denounced as guilty of sins as 
great as those charged on the slaveholders. The great 
factions which have struggled for possession of the govern- 
ment of this country have denounced each other, in mass 
and as individuals, as guilty of crimes of the blackest dye ; 



54 THEFIVECOTTONSTATES *'' 

there are few monarclis of Europe, or conspicuous public 
men, who do not receive and endure an equal share of 
abuse. The priests, and the clergy, and professing Chris- 
tians, have not been spared — for the cohorts of infidelity 
are still more numerous than those of the abolitionists. 

"Why, then, of all the men who are well abused, should 
the slaveholder and his champions exhibit the least self- 
respect, the least patience and power of endurance ? The . 
writers and orators of the South are no strangers to the 
task of evil speaking — they have shown themselves capa- 
ble of pouring out floods of abuse, when occasion offered. 
They should have learned, ere now, to take as well as 
give. It was a fatal mistake to refuse the petitions of the 
abolitionists ; that policy increased their numbers and 
boldness. It is, to this day, the corner-stone of their 
power ; for many who detested their course and doctrines 
thought the petitions should have been received, and then 
condemned. They are encouraged in their work by see- 
ing that, if they can do nothing else, they are able to stir 
up a great deal of ire ; that, if they cannot touch the heart 
of the slaveholder, they can at least stir up gall, and pierce 
the fountains of bitterness. The abolitionists have lived 
upon notoriety, which they could not have achieved but 
by the help of the impatient and rash defenders of Sla- 
very. Let them alone ; they will yet sink into the insig- 
nificance to which, by their numbers, they belong. They 
are alike the enemies of Slavery and the Constitution of 
their country, and not a few of them, of the Bible. Doubt- 
less there are many in the North who do not hold the 
same opinion of Slavery as the men of the South, but they 
are neither the enemies of the master, nor of their coun- 
try ; they will abide by the Constitution and its proper 
interpreters ; and if their brethren of the South should 
ever, in a time of danger, need their assistance, it would 
be given with promptness and efliciency. They do not 
differ in opinion from slaveholders, on the subject of Sla- 
very, more than the prevailing parties differ upon other 



A N D N E W Y R K . 55 

topics. That difference should be endured, even upon the 
delicate subject of Slavery; it is so inevitable, that it 
exists among slaveholders themselves, who freely expressed 
very diverse opinions as long as they were permitted to 
give vent to their thoughts. Let that freedom be speedily 
restored, and let no man hereafter assume to determine 
what his neighbor may say ; let the important right of free 
speech be only under the curb of the law, and the duly 
constituted tribunals of justice. 

A CONFERENCE OF SLAVE-OWNERS. 

It is quite certain that Slavery in the South is not 
understood and appreciated at the North or in Europe as 
it should be, and it is scarcely less certain that it is not 
universally understood at the South as it should be. An 
institution which so much concerns the interests and well- 
fare of human beings, for this life and the life to come, de- 
serves to be continuously studied. Many able, learned, and 
valuable works on the subject of Slavery have come to us 
from the South ; we have yet, however, to receive from 
that quarter a great and authoritative exposition of the 
institution — not in the shape of a defence, nor of an apo- 
logy, but of a social exposition, in which Slavery, as it 
exists at the South, shall be fully and ably presented, in 
its aspects, historical and actual : in its relations with so- 
ciety ; the relations of master and servant ; the family 
relations of the negroes; the sale and transfer of negroes; 
the property in negroes, and the various consequences of 
that relation ; the degree and kind of education, religious 
and otherwise, to be given to the negro, and all that con- 
cerns the industrial and economical aspects of the institu- 
tion, both now and in the future. Slavery deserves a 
social code of its own, co-extensive with the Slave States. 
There are many large slaveholders of the South so intelli- 
gent, so well-prepared by experience and long reflection, 
BO full of sympathy for the slaves and the desire to do the 



56 THE FIVE COTTON STATES 

best for them that can be devised, that, if brought together 
for conference, thej could produce a series of invakiable 
papers, presenting the whole subject in a form alike im- 
portant to master and slave, to South and North, and to 
the whole nation. This might lead to a constitution for 
Slavery, a slave code for the Slave States, and a uniform 
social policy respecting the management of slaves. We 
have scarce ever heard any thing with more interest than 
the accounts we have received from Southern planters of 
the social and economical policy pursued on their planta- 
tions. A convention, such as we suggest, would bring to 
the public eye the best results of thousands of well-devised 
and fairly-tried experiments. Such an assemblage, for such 
a purpose, would be an honor to the South, an honor to 
the public institutions of the United States ; it would go 
very far to remove ignorance and unfavorable opinions in 
the North and in Europe. After such a measure, well car- 
ried out, abolitionism could no longer flourish ; the occu- 
pation would be no longer profitable ; its leaders \fould be 
under the necessity of seeking employment more conso- 
nant with Christian kindness and the peace of society. 
And others of the North who now regard Slavery with a 
distrustful and hopeless feeling, would begin to look upon 
it as a sure method of elevating the African from savage 
to civilized life, and to give the master words of cheer, 
instead of uudissembled distrust. 

There is a class of slaveholders in the South who may 
not receive suggestions of this kind in good part, espe- 
cially in moments of excitement. There is another, 
however, who will welcome any thing that is well in- 
tended, and give it as much consideration as it may 
appear to deserve. To such we address ourselves, and 
desire them, when the present excitement is past, end as 
it may, to consider, whether a meeting of fifty or a hun- 
dred slave-owners could not do something to improve the 
institution of Slavery, and make it better for the master 
and better for the man. Slavery, like every other human 



ANDNEWYORK. 57 

institution, is susceptible of progress in tlie right direction. 
There is a wide interval between Slavery as established 
on some plantations and as seen on others. Let the best 
and, most successful methods be brought to light and set 
up as guides for others, and let the united wisdom and 
experience of slaveholders be brought to bear on the whole 
subject. Let it become a study, as much as the science 
of legislation or government. 

Slavery is a great institution. It concerns, in this 
country, the interests of four millions of people, who, 
from the necessity of the case, can have no voice in deter- 
mining their own condition. History has fully warned us, 
that emancipations of slaves on a large scale are hazardous 
experiments, which, in most cases, have failed in amelio- 
rating the condition of those to whom freedom is given 
in this manner. No adequate preparation can be made 
for wholesale emancipation. Slaves set free in large 
numbers rapidly sink to the condition of criminals and 
vagabonds. There have been many instances of this. 
So it was with the emancipations in the early years of 
Christianity. So it was with the feudal emancipations of 
England ; and so it is with the British emancipation, and 
with that of the French West Lidies in 1848. St. Domingo, 
where the slaves took their freedom, is far from provino- 
any thing in favor of wholesale emancipation. 

This door being shut, we are led to inquire. Whether 
Slavery is not capable of elevating itself; ^Vhether slaves 
cannot work out their own emancipation ; and Whether 
any other mode of emancipation, where large numbers 
are concerned, is practicable or beneficial to slaves, than 
that which sets fi-eedom before them as the reward of a 
course of industry distinctly marked out. The present 
system in the South makes no provision for increase of 
white population; if that system is continued, another 
should be adopted, by which, within a hundred years, the 
negroes should purchase not only themselves, but the 
lands of their masters. When the negroes shall have 



58 THEFIVECOTTONSTATES. ^ 

done this, their freedom may be safely conferred, because 
they will be able to maintain it ; when they, by their own 
labor, pay for themselves, under a system arranged by 
the masters, they will have become thrifty enough to 
make their way in the world. It may take a long time 
for such a system to accomplish an end of Slavery. Very 
true : it may require generations, but it will prevent un- 
due increase, while it takes nothing from the masters ; 
and will send forth very few freedmen of the class who 
become nuisances to the community in which they reside. 
"We think it not only right, but indispensable, that the 
slave-owners of the South should look at the subject in 
regard to its future ; for if they make no provision for the 
time when there will be twenty millions of slaves, where 
there are now only four millions, the white inhabitants 
will either forsake several States, or be driven from them. 
The whites and blacks cannot inhabit the same States in 
the disproportion which will then exist. It is morally and 
socially impossible ; it is .economically impossible that 
South Carolina could hold in peace and comfort a million 
of blacks and a third of a million of whites. This may be 
the case in less than forty years ; and in less than ten 
years the price of cotton will fall, because a competition 
will be established, by the untiring efforts of English capi- 
talists, against the planters of this country, in India, China, 
Africa, in Central and in parts of South America. This 
will enable the purchasers of cotton better to control the 
market of this country, by playing all the rest against it. 
Cotton will not only come down in price, but negroes will 
come down, because there will be an over-supply ; cotton 
will not pay as it does now, and the slaves will eat their 
masters out of house and home. No rate of dispersion in 
new States can so moderate the increase of slaves as mate- 
rially to postpone that conjunction of events which will 
produce the alternative of a separation between master and 
slave — the master must desert his post, or the slaves will 
drive him aw^ay. The dispersion by sales and emigration 



, ANDNEWYORK. 59 

must cease when slave-labor fails to be profitable, as will 
be the case, so far as cotton is concerned, in less than ten 
years. It is well known that this over-supply of slave- 
labor now exists in Eastern Virginia, and that, but for the 
outlet afforded in States further south, owing to the high 
price of cotton, Virginia and South Carolina would, at 
this moment, be overwhelmed with an over-population of 
negroes. The purchase of Louisiana saved them. The 
emigration to the Gulf States, and to the valley of the 
Mississippi, of the planters with their slaves, the sale of 
an immense number every year by the owners still remain- 
ing, postponed an evil, which is yet inevitable, unless pro- 
vided against in time. :N'othing like the acquisition of 
Louisiana can again occur in the history of the country ; 
and if it could, it needs only a reduction in the price of 
cotton to make it nugatory as a preventive of the evil of 
over-population. There is yet south of the Missouri Com- 
promise Line a vast cotton territory, but it is occupied 
slowly ; and cotton will be down, and the dispersion Avill 
cease, long before it can be occupied. The evil will then 
rapidly supervene in many of the States, of having one 
hundred slaves to feed and clothe where fifty only are 
wanted. The slaves cannot be sold, though they make 
the land worthless, for they must consume its whole pro- 
duct. This dire calamity impends equally in the Union 
or out of it. The nature of it is well known, both in Vir- 
ginia and South Carolina ; and sad results were beginnino- 
to be felt, when succor came in the shape of high prices. 
Prices fluctuate, but the tendency is steadily downward. 
The present high prices of cotton are producing their 
usual efiect — competition is growing up all over the 
world. It will be felt in the South in three years ; it will 
produce suft'ering in less than seven years. 

Now is the time to act: every expedient which the wit 
of man can devise should be put in operation to provide 
adequately against the approaching evil — an evil which 
our children may live to see, and feel, and deplore, llovv 



60 THE FIVE COTTON ST ATES.- 

miich time shall be lost in squabbling over political ab- 
stractions ? How much in struggles for political power, 
which demoralize all who are engaged in them ? Let the 
prudent owners of slaves look forward beyond these tem- 
porary affairs, at what is to be the condition of their estates 
ten, twenty, or thirty years hence. We say again, then, 
that the wisest and best men of the South should get toge- 
ther, men free from every taint of party demoralization, 
as soon as practicable, and examine the whole subject of 
Slavery in its present condition and future prospects. 
Slavery deserves to be studied and treated far above the 
atmosphere of opposing factions and selfish partisans. 

If Slavery is to be permanent, as is contemplated by the 
South, there is the more reason why those concerned, as 
owners and residents, should give themselves to the ear- 
nest study of it as a social institution, destined, before 
half a century, to deal with twenty millions of slaves. But 
Slavery cannot be permanent unless the masters can 
secure freedom of speech and a tranquil life, though sur- 
rounded by neighbors who do not appreciate the institu- 
tion, or who may dislike it. 

SECURITY FROM INSURRECTION AND FROM INVASION. 

There is a topic upon which we shall now venture a few 
remarks, well knowing that some will not regard them as 
timely, and that others will look upon it as presumption, 
to advise those who know best. In the hope that we may 
stimulate those who know best to give special attention 
to one matter which has not been, as we believe, well 
considered, we submit our suggestions. We refer to 
security from insurrection and invasion, and to the 
safety of families from the attack of slaves. It appears 
to us there is less harmony of opinion and practice, on 
this subject, than there should be on one of such vital 
importance. A conference, such as we have proposed, 
would look upon this as one of the first topics which 



AND NEW YORK. 61 

should engage its attention. Such a conference would 
certainly embrace many persons who would fully under- 
stand what we wish to say, and who could say it much 
better. The main element of safety is in the character of 
the African and his American descendants. These people 
are, by nature, kind, affectionate, and faithful ; the very 
fact that, in such a country, on such a frontier of Slave 
States, there have not been more fugitives, exhibits the 
faithful and quiet disposition of the slaves, and certifies 
strongly to kind treatment by the masters. It is not in 
the least probable that slaves who will not run from their 
masters, will think of murder or insurrection. There has 
never been as many murders of white people by blacks in 
the South, in proportion to population, as of whites by 
whites in the North. Thousands of most touching in- 
stances of faithfulness and attachment to masters have been 
recorded, but the tithe of these cases has never been made 
public. It is not necessary to tell the slave-owner that kind- 
ness and justice to his slaves is his best security; he knows 
that, and his compliance with this duty is fully attested 
by the history of American Slavery, where even the symp- 
toms of insurrection have been so rare, and where the great 
increase of the population proves they have been neither 
overworked nor underfed, nor have they suffered by ne- 
glect. The history of Slavery in Cuba, and in the British 
"West Indies, exhibits a fearfully difterent result. There 
is, at this time, in the South fifteen times as many negroes 
as were ever imported — in the West Indies there are not 
now, it is believed, three times as many. The American 
master has been kind and considerate as to the health and 
comfort of his slaves ; and he has his reward in the supe- 
rior strength, constitution, and intelligence of his slaves. 
The value of their labor is in the same proportion. 

But something more than this general kindness is re- 
quired in a matter which concerns not only life and pro- 
perty, but the very existence of society. For one cruel 
and bad managing master, among fifty of a difterent kind, 



62 THEFIVECOTTONSTATES^ 

may drive hundreds of slaves to desperation, and bring 
danger upon those who had done nothing to provoke it. 
The truth is, that there is more to fear from imprudent 
and bad masters, than there is from the negroes, ^when as 
well treated as they are, for the most part. No statutes 
could be framed which would cover adequately cases of 
this kind ; nothing short of a regular organization of the 
slave-owners, as extensive, if possible, as Slavery, with the 
view of establishing a code of treatment. These organi- . 
zations might for convenience be connected with county 
agricultural societies, a county court, or any other period- 
ical assemblage. Among the chief men of a county it 
would not be difficult to have an understanding, what was 
and what was not right and safe in the management of 
slaves. The public opinion generated by this association 
would be perhaps sufficient to curb the most of those who 
would offend. The mode of restraining those whose bad 
passions or rashness public opinion could not control 
would belong to the assembled wisdom of the county. 

We suggest this organization only to make way for an- 
other which we regard as far more important, and that is 
a regular police, selected from the slaves, of such numbers 
and for such specified duties as each locality might make 
necessary. The slave population throughout the South 
would furnish men as reliable and as fit for this duty as need 
be desired. Two or three per cent., at most five per cent., 
of those above eighteen years of age would suffice for this 
purpose, which would not involve, ordinarily, absence from 
labor one whole day in a month. It is w^ell known how 
dependent large cities are for protection upon the police. 
It is notorious, however, that this protection is often due 
in part to bad men, who contrive to procure positions in 
the police for the purpose of occasionally making common 
cause with thieves and other criminals. With all this, 
the police of our cities, at times badly tainted with this 
class, is far better than none. Now we venture to say 
that an experienced police-officer, with the aid of the 



ANDNEWYOEK. 63 

masters and a few experienced overseers, would organize 
a black police upon a system, applicable to the whole slave 
region, which would be an adequate protection against 
insurrection and against all other outbreaks of the slaves, 
except 'those due to the sudden impulses of passion. 

The members of this black police would appear once a 
month or oftener before their chief, a white man, to make 
their verbal report, and receive instructions. The fall 
significancy of their position need not be disclosed to them. 
It would be enough for them to know, that they were to 
look out for all bad negroes and bad white men who might 
be found lurking in the neighborhood, and to keep their 
ears wide open to all the gossip that might concern their 
masters. If they were dubbed with the title of Captains, 
it would add to their vigilance. There would seldom be 
any occasion for their traversing their districts, and care 
would be necessary that they should not incur the odium 
which belongs to spies and informers. "We assume that 
the slave would be proud of his office — faithful, because 
that is his character — pleased with the rewards and notice 
he would receive. "Where many were found suitable, they 
might be changed, and the office given in rotatioai or as a 
reward of good conduct. It would require, of course, 
some time for such a system to become fully understood 
and to receive the exact form in which it would work best. 
"Whether they should assemble once a month or once in 
three months, with a proper uniform, for drill and a good 
dinner ; whether they should be taught the use of arms ; 
whether they should have a staff or any thing else to 
exliibit on occasion as their badge of office, would be con- 
siderations for those who would have the chief supervision. 

"We forbear to enlarge upon this suggestion ; if it meets 
with any favor from those who are most interested, they 
will find no difficulty in obtaining valuable hints from 
police officers of skill and experience in New York and 
Philadelphia and elsewhere. Having the firm belief, that 
there are among the slaves enough of tlie faithful to afford 



64 THE FIVE COTTON STATES AND NEW YORK. 

ample and sure protection to the masters, we offer the 
above as a mode of attaining it. Out of this danger, if it 
exists, the people of the South can pluck safety, — a safety 
so complete as to defy all the Abolitionists and John Browns 
in the country. We believe no city in the world could have 
a more faithful police than the masters can select from 
their slaves. In time it might be made the means of form- 
ing a military force of great strength and fidelity. 

We should not have presumed to make this suggestion, 
but for the appi:ehensions now existing in the South ; but 
for that terror which has been created and is now main- 
tained by the enemies of the Union or by mere politicians, • 
whose artifice has been to swell their party and keep up 
its discipline by playing on the fears of their constituents, 
and creating a constant dread of inroads by Abolitionists 
or insurrection of slaves. 

If there is any ground for the present terror, for the 
present fear of Abolitionists, for that despotic prohibition 
of free speech now prevailing in portions of the South, 
which we do not believe, there is good reason for con- 
sidering some such plan of safety as we propose. We beg 
the people of the South to believe, that there is not an 
Abolitionist in New England or in New York who would 
head an insurrection in any part of the Slave States. John 
Brown and his associates were educated for their crime in 
Kansas. It was in civil war, the mast terrible and demo- 
ralizing of all wars, that he and they were prepared for 
the villany of Harper's Ferry. If we are now unhappily 
on the eve of that greatest of human calamities, a civil 
war, there cannot be a doubt the South will be pierced i'n 
a thousand places ; and insurrection, with fire and sword, 
will be carried into thousands upon thousands of homes that 
were lately happy — homes that might be still among the 
happiest on earth, but for the treachery of politicians and 
the treason of men in high places. 

THE END. 



'tf»'S2'SSrYi 



fm^ 



mm 



:^m^h^^'^^' 



4'/^'^A'A^A^o^■Ar^n,^i^^^r^^ 



TMuTf 



w;^/Snf V v )^f 






"^A."' 



'm^fi^, 









,,^,^, . ^^^/\ 









^^^'^^ 



^(^^^^^aaaA^^ 









•'^wPS^ 



^ ,^ ri.^ ^ A ^^A^iCP^' ■ ' ■^^'^A,A,A\./ 



?^WMW?W^^ 



ii§?i?i?l 



8aWeffll5S£;^::^^^^T^ 



OT^MffrfwTOilR 



il#:#'4 






^mmm^'^''m^ 



aa^o^^aw 



m^ifM^r^^'^^i 



M^>^ 



r ^'^^^ .r\. 



^'.W.O^^.'o./^^Oy 



-^^:;;^^^'^A^x? 






a^;»^^A%i^5^?S?^?^?®^ 






.-^^..^^.^^.M^^^^ft^^^ 



^a/^^^aAa'a^OaOa'^'-''^" 






''■^'?' ^^ .- 



r<! ''fy- A,' Y T:' 









''^A^XA^ft 






^^■^^nAA^^AA;^^ 



^^A^^*^«»AA^ 



M.aA.Aftn^'^^ 



-.«/*^^A' 



■■'-■iiiiii 






«^.:'^'-^»^^ 



Af)f\^.r^l^r\n 



rf^ffM^^^^ 













011895 782 9 





V ■ 






